


In Plain Sight

by wolfystiles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - High School, Basketball Player Derek Hale, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pack Feels, Stiles is a Super Supportive Boyfriend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfystiles/pseuds/wolfystiles
Summary: “You’re not on the team, are you?” Kate asked him while launching the first bag of trash into the dumpster with barely any effort. Almost like she was used to throwing heavy shit around.He glanced at her arms, trying to see how muscular they were. A hunter would probably be pretty fit, right? Unless she just hit the gym a lot like Allison. Either way, it was impossible to tell with her jacket in the way.He looked back up at her face and realized she was staring at the maroon jersey he was wearing.“Oh, no,” Stiles said, trying not to let her see the HALE lettering on his back. “My boyfriend’s on the team. I’m just wearing his jersey to cheer him on.”Kate hummed. “That’s cute.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 66
Kudos: 428





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles was seconds away from taking out all of his impatience on his car horn, werewolf hearing be damned. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that there was a sleeping baby inside the Hale house, and that Derek’s mom would literally rip out his intestines and bake them into a pie if Alex woke up early from his nap. 

He settled for tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, humming an obnoxious rendition of “All Star” because he knew Derek could hear it. Stiles was hoping it would piss him off enough that he’d get his stupidly perfect ass into the jeep faster. 

Seriously, what the hell was Derek even doing? Flossing bits and pieces of Bambi out of his teeth? Fixing his fluffy hair into a bigger ball of fluff? Practicing his mad blowjob skills on the end of his hairbrush? 

Whoa, wait. That last one was actually kind of hot. Derek sucking on a phallic shaped object? Consider Stiles hot and bothered by the mental image. 

He shook his head and willed the thought away. It was  _ not _ a good time to be contemplating whether he should blow Derek in the car. They were about to head off to Derek’s basketball game, and Stiles really didn’t think Derek would appreciate it if he had to play basketball in wet cum pants. 

Stiles cracked his window to let out the smell of arousal that was probably already seeping into every crevice of the upholstery. A cold breeze snaked its way inside, making goosebumps pop up on his arms. Good God, why did basketball have to be a winter sport? He cranked up the heat and suddenly wished he was wearing his heavy coat instead of his ratty sweatshirt over Derek’s maroon basketball jersey.

He was desperately trying to hit the high notes in “Killer Queen” when Derek finally emerged from his house in nothing but his white basketball uniform and a thin navy jacket. 

“Fucking finally,” Stiles all but shouted, cranking his window back up.

Derek scowled at him and jogged to the car. He looked like some kind of broody angel with his all white outfit and eyebrows of doom. It was nice to see him in some actual color compared to the black and earthy toned outfits he usually wore. Not that he looked terrible in black or anything. Quite the opposite, actually. It was just, well, Derek looked fucking amazing in white. So amazing, in fact, that Stiles made a mental note to buy Derek a white hoodie for his birthday. 

The car door opened and Derek slid into the passenger seat, bringing a fresh wave of cold air with him. 

“Hey,” Derek said, leaning over to give Stiles a kiss.

Stiles wrapped his cold hand around the back of Derek’s neck and leaned into the kiss, humming when he realized Derek had on cherry chapstick. He licked at Derek’s mouth to get a better taste and Derek responded by nipping at his lips.

They pulled back with a wet smack and smiled at each other.

“Did I mention how much I love kissing you?” Stiles asked. “Because I do. A lot.” He used one hand to tangle his fingers with Derek’s and used his other hand to start backing out of the Hale’s dirt driveway. 

Derek gripped his hand tighter and rubbed his thumb over Stiles’s knuckles.

“You might have mentioned it once or twice or… three hundred times,” Derek said, smiling in a way that Stiles knew meant he was secretly pleased. “Did I mention that Cora wants to kill you for getting a  _ Shrek _ song stuck in her head?”

“Oh shiiiit. That totally backfired on me, huh?” Stiles asked. 

Derek nodded and Stiles thunked his head against his steering wheel, groaning dramatically. Oh well. He’d just buy Cora a blueberry muffin and they’d be even. No one could stay mad when a delicious pastry was waved tauntingly in front of their face. Stiles would know. He’d done it to his dad many-a-times through the years, and it almost always worked. 

“I thought it was a great attempt at serenading me since I’m obviously Smash Mouth’s number one fan,” Derek said with a complete look of seriousness. 

Stiles squeezed his hand. “I’m sure Lady Gaga will be heartbroken when I send her a tweet about how her most dedicated little monster switched his allegiance to the  _ Shrek _ guys.” 

“Ouch,” Derek deadpanned. “My own boyfriend betraying me? Sounds like I’m caught in a bad romance.” 

“Oh my god.” Stiles bit his lip to stop himself from smiling “Shut. Up.”

It honestly wasn’t fair that Derek could be both good looking and funny with his stupid Lady Gaga references. Derek didn’t even know any Lady Gaga songs until he met Stiles, so really, in some roundabout way that only made sense in Stiles’s mind, Stiles should be taking credit for Derek’s pop culture based sense of humor. 

Stiles pulled onto the main road and instantly switched on his headlights. He hated driving through the preserve in the dark. All the trees arched over the road and blocked out the sky, and even though all the leaves had fallen off the trees, it was still pitch black out. He trusted Derek’s night vision to see if they were going to accidentally go careening off the side of the road, so Stiles wasn’t too worried. He was just… cautious. 

Derek seemed to pick up on his tense posture because he turned on the radio to Stiles’s favorite station and started singing along to “I Wanna be Sedated.” Stiles squeezed Derek’s hand in thanks and joined in on the second verse. Every time he tried to sing over Derek, Derek would just lean into Stiles’s space and sing even louder. The two of them were practically scream-singing by the middle of the song, and they sounded like total  _ morons _ . Stiles didn’t give a shit. His shoulders relaxed into a comfortable position and he was thumping his and Derek’s joined hands against the seat to the beat of the song. 

They were still trying to out-sing each other by the time they parked in the school parking lot. Stiles was pretty sure he won whatever weird competition they were having. His dry throat, which was screaming for a drink, would probably agree. 

Stiles got out of the car and frowned when he realized that Derek wasn’t carrying his sports bag with him. Derek usually just hoarded water bottles and snacks in it, and ever since Stiles started going to Derek’s basketball games, he took it upon himself to steal whatever food Derek had squirreled away in his bag. 

He was actually pretty bummed that Derek didn’t have it tonight because that meant he couldn’t steal any of Talia’s homemade granola off of him. Stiles wasn’t the biggest fan of nuts except for the ones that were attached to Derek. But Talia’s granola-nut bars? That shit was to die for. Stiles took every opportunity to eat some of it when he could, even if that meant agreeing to babysit Alex in exchange for Talia making him his own personal batch. 

Stiles briefly mourned his loss of nutty goodness as they took off at a brisk walk towards the gym doors. Derek, being the tactile wolfy person he was, slung his arm around Stiles’s shoulders and ghosted his nose over Stiles’s temple. A ball of warmth filled Stiles’s chest when he pressed his nose to Derek’s jacket and smelled a mixture of cotton, Derek’s woodsy house smell, and whatever deodorant Derek used. It was a smell he would gladly bottle up and sell… to himself. 

He pressed a quick kiss to Derek’s shoulder. 

“You want me to grab you a water from the concession stand?”

“No, mom,” Derek huffed. 

“Don’t be rude,” Stiles said, jabbing Derek in the ribs with his elbow. 

Derek pretended to wheeze and made both of them sway side to side. Stiles laughed and shoved into him some more until they were practically stumbling to the gym doors. They nearly ran into a mom wearing a Beacon Hills shirt. She raised her poorly drawn on eyebrows at them until they scooted past her with apologetic smiles. 

They entered the gym and Stiles’s ears were instantly assaulted by the echoing sound of basketballs hitting the floor. He scanned the brightly lit court and saw the opposing team doing drills on the visitors side. They were all sprinting around in forest green jerseys and black basketball shoes. Members of the Beacon Hills basketball team were still trickling inside, and a lot of them were already doing warm-up drills. 

“You going to cheer for me?” Derek spoke right by Stiles’s ear, somehow managing to sound teasing and bashful all at once. Stiles’s heart fluttered in his chest. He was convinced that one day Derek was going to melt the core of Stiles’s body with all his cuteness. 

“No, you see, I totally came to cheer for my other boyfriend,” Stiles said sarcastically. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of him? Jackson Whittemore? He’s very sexy and I’m very in love with all of his douche canoe-ness.” 

“Huh,” Derek said. “Must be awkward for him to fuck you when you’re wearing a jersey with my name and number on the back.” 

“Maybe being a cuck turns him on,” Stiles grinned. 

“Hale!” Derek’s coach barked from across the gym, scaring Stiles and making him jerk out from under Derek’s arm. “Say goodbye to your fruit loop boyfriend and get to warming up!”

“Fruit loop?” Stiles mouthed silently. 

“Yes, coach,” Derek called back, sounding every bit the polite kid that Talia raised him to be. He rolled his eyes only for Stiles to see. “I gotta go. Come find me at halftime to tell me how great I’m doing.” 

“Sure thing, Mr. Cocky. Just for that, I hope you get fouled and taken out in the middle of the game.”

“Me? Fouling?” Derek fluttered his eyelashes as he started walking backwards towards his teammates. “Wouldn’t dream of it, babe.” 

“Of course not,  _ babe _ ,” Stiles said, trying not to laugh. “Have fun out there. Win some points for me.” 

Derek gave him a thumbs up and then joined his teammates on the court. Stiles looked at the timer on the wall and saw that there was still thirteen minutes until the game started. Since he was already bored without Derek to entertain him, and he didn’t have any of Talia’s granola to mindlessly snack on, he decided to get some food from the concession stand. 

He shuffled his way through a cluster of parents and wandered over to the concessions to browse through the menu. Even though a hot dog sounded mouthwateringly fantastic, Stiles didn’t want to get too full because he had plans to take Derek out for pizza after the game. Instead, he stepped up to the counter and ordered a small bag of popcorn and a coke. 

“Here you go,” the cashier said while handing him his food. 

Stiles reached out to grab it from her and then did a double take, suddenly realizing that she looked kinda familiar. Her hat was pulled down low over her brown eyes, making it hard to see her full face clearly, but he recognized her dirty blonde hair and leather jacket from somewhere. He was pretty sure he’d only seen teachers and parents working the concession stand before, so maybe she was either a substitute teacher or had a kid on the basketball team?

“Are you going to keep staring at me all night or what, kid?” the cashier asked, clearly irritated that Stiles was holding up the line. 

“Who, me? Staring?” Stiles said with a fake look of confusion. “Nope, I was uh, looking for ketchup actually. Think you could give me some?”

Stiles couldn’t see the cashier’s eyebrows, but if he could, he was pretty sure they’d be climbing towards her hairline. 

“Ketchup,” she repeated with an unimpressed stare that could probably rival Derek’s most extreme bitchface. “For your popcorn?” 

Shit. 

“Ketchup on popcorn? Don’t be silly… Elizabeth? Mary? Susan?” Stiles leaned closer to her over the counter. “What did you say your name was again?” 

The cashier rolled her eyes and shoved a few packets of ketchup into the pocket of his hoodie since his hands were full. 

“Next. Customer. Please.”  


“Okay, yes, great talk,” Stiles said while backing away. He was extremely aware of when other people wanted to throttle him for talking too much, and that chick? That chick looked like she wanted to shove every hot dog down Stiles’s throat until he choked. 

“Thanks,” he squeaked, motioning to his food with his chin. Then he clutched his food close to his chest and made a hasty retreat towards the bleachers.

He was climbing up to his usual seat when a manicured hand gripped his shoulder and whirled him around, nearly making him drop his popcorn. 

“Watch it — oh heeey, Lydia,” Stiles said, crowding closer to her so the people coming up the bleachers could pass him. Her sweet smelling perfume, probably some outrageously expensive bottle of Chanel, tickled his nose.

Lydia flipped her braided hair over her shoulder and assessed him with a squinted look that he’d been on the receiving end of countless times since becoming sort-of-friends with her. It was like she was constantly trying to determine how Stiles was her intellectual rival and not just some spazzy kid with ADHD. 

“Stiles,” she greeted, “I need you to come sit with me.” She motioned towards the bottom row bleachers where a few other girls in their grade were sitting with colorful posters perched across their laps. 

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Why?” 

Lydia looked over his shoulder and Stiles followed her gaze to where a group of cheerleaders were doing stretches behind the visitor’s basketball goal. 

“They brought cheerleaders with them and we don’t have any,” Lydia said as if that should somehow be making perfect sense in Stiles’s head. 

He continued to stare blankly at her and Lydia rolled her eyes. She grabbed his wrist and started making a path for them down the bleachers. 

“You’re going to help us cheer so we can win,” she said. “I’ve got a bet riding on this game and I need Jackson playing his best.” She steered Stiles into the seat beside hers and then took a huge brightly colored poster from a girl named Sadie. It had Jackson’s name and basketball number on it in bubble letters, and there were red lipstick kiss marks bordering it. Lydia settled half of the sign onto Stiles’s lap. “You’re going to help me hold this up.”

“Are you kidding me?” Stiles said, shoving his mouth full of popcorn. “The day I actively cheer for Jackson Whittemore is the day I lose all respect for myself.” 

“You mean you haven’t lost it already?” Lydia asked with that same innocent expression she used to wear all the time when she downplayed how smart she actually was.

She looked perfectly pleased with herself when Stiles choked on his popcorn. His eyes watered and he started coughing hard enough that the people walking by him looked at him with concern. Lydia grabbed his drink from where it was sitting between them and held the straw up to his mouth. He sucked in his coke greedily, pausing to cough a few more times. 

“I think that was God sending you a message that you should just shut up and do as I say,” Lydia said smugly. 

“That wasn’t God,” Stiles wheezed, “that was the devil.”

Lydia patted him on the head in that patronizing way of hers and then helped herself to some of Stiles’s popcorn. He sighed in defeat and placed the popcorn between them so they could share. He was pretty much done eating it anyways. The popcorn was too salty and was making his lips tingle uncomfortably to the point where he considered going over to kiss more chapstick off Derek’s lips. 

The buzzer rang out across the gym and all the players went to huddle around their coaches. Stiles took the time to appreciate how good Derek’s arms looked in his sleeveless jersey.

“I’ll cheer for Derek when they announce his name if you cheer for Jackson,” Lydia said.

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned so loudly that Derek immediately zeroed in on him with a raised brow. 

Stupid werewolf hearing. Stiles knew that Derek had some kind of method to tune out most of the sounds around him, but he was somehow more aware of everything that Stiles was saying. Okay, well, not  _ everything  _ he was saying. They had boundaries on that kind of thing because they were a healthy couple and not a pair of obsessive weirdos.

Derek once offhandedly mentioned that he found Stiles’s voice and heartbeat to be comforting, and that somehow made him more sensitive to Stiles’s general presence or whatever. It was all very cute and heartwarming, and Stiles really should stop leaking gooey feelings for Derek all over the place when Derek needed to focus. 

“Stiles.” Lydia jabbed him in the side with her elbow, drawing his attention back to her. 

“Fine,” he whined, “I’ll cheer for Lizard Boy if you cheer for Broody Brows.” 

“I still don’t understand why you call him that,” Lydia grumbled, obviously referring to Jackson since Derek’s nickname was pretty self explanatory. 

Stiles shrugged. 

“I just feel like he was a lizard in another life.” 

They both perked up at the sound of the announcer talking on the microphone. Stiles stood up and wrestled his hoodie over his head to reveal Derek’s maroon jersey. Lydia eyed the jersey with an approving hum and then stood up beside him, her hand clutching at her obnoxiously large sign.

The announcer called out the names of the opposing team’s starting players before they got to the Beacon Hill’s team. 

“Starting off for the Beacon Hills Cyclones is number four, Vernon Boyd!” 

“Number eleven, Andrew Peters!” 

“Number fifteen, Brett Coleman!” 

“Number thirty-two, Derek Hale.”

Stiles cupped his hands around his mouth and let out a few howls that drowned out Lydia’s cheers. Derek’s cheeks turned pink and his eyes locked on Stiles. Stiles gave him a cheeky wave. 

“And number thirty-seven, Jackson Whittemore.” 

Lydia started screaming and jumping up in the air, waving her sign so furiously that Stiles nearly tripped over himself in an attempt to hold onto his half of the sign. Cheering for Jackson felt like some weird betrayal to the universe. Stiles was a man of his word and did it anyways, even though it wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic sounding as Lydia’s ear piercing shrieks.

They took a seat as soon as the referees and players headed to the middle of the court for the jump ball. 

The gym became absolutely silent as one referee stood in the middle of the court, holding the ball high above his head. Both teams had their eyes glued to the ball. Their muscles were frozen in tense positions, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. 

Stiles couldn’t help but think of baby Simba when he looked at the ball. He just liked to imagine that a spotlight would suddenly appear on the ball and that someone would start playing “Circle of Life” over the speakers. Now  _ that _ would be epic. 

He was shaken out of his daydream by the whistle blowing. 

The referee threw the ball up into the air. Without missing a beat, Jackson jumped towards it and managed to skim the ball with the tips of his fingers. The ball flew backwards towards Boyd. 

The game was on. 

Stiles tracked the ball back and forth, trying to keep up with all the quick passes and interceptions. The Beacon Hills team was good, but the other team had a solid defense that was hard to get past. They kept blocking passes and took advantage of all the missed shots at their goal.

Derek got the ball and was trying to skirt around the player guarding him. He wasn’t having much luck with it. Stiles could tell Derek was fed up by the way his lips reflexively curled like they normally would when he was being all growly with his fangs. He wasn’t all that surprised when Derek intentionally pushed the other player out of the way. The referees blew their whistles, calling him out for fouling. 

“Derek, come on! We talked about this!” Stiles said, unable to stop himself from flailing into Lydia’s personal bubble. 

She barely noticed. Her eyes were glued to Jackson. He somehow managed to get possession of the ball as soon as the other team threw it in from the sidelines. He took it all the way to the end and made a successful layup shot. Everyone sitting in the home stands let out a collective cheer and stomped their feet against the bleachers. Even Stiles almost found himself cheering for the lizard bastard. Him! Almost cheering for Jackson! That was a major indicator of how lackluster first period was so far.

Thank God their team started to get their shit together in the second period. They strengthened their defense and their offense became more aggressive. Derek got fouled two more times and was subbed out a lot more. Stiles was too excited about all the points they were suddenly making to give him shit about it. 

They were four points away from passing the other team’s score when the halftime buzzer went off.

Stiles got to his feet and stretched his arms above his head, wincing at how sore his ass was from the bleachers. It was almost as sore as the time he convinced Derek to have sex inside a small concrete shed that housed all of the Hale’s yard and gardening supplies. Stiles came away from that experience with a scratched up back and a bruised ass. He also nearly busted his face open on the lawn mower thanks to Derek swatting too hard at the dead wasp that was clinging to the back of Stiles’s shirt. 

Ah memories. Sweet, sweet memories. 

“Come on,” Lydia said, nudging him towards the stairs, “let’s buy them some drinks. You can Venmo me for it later.” 

He grabbed his trash and offered his elbow out for Lydia to grab onto so she wouldn’t be swallowed in the crowd of people heading for the bathrooms and concessions. She had a considerate look on her face for all of one second before she gripped his arm in the loosest way possible. Stiles rolled his eyes. It’s not like his skin was equivalent to the garbage clutched in his fist or anything. He was kinda sweaty though. And sweaty skin was not that fun to touch unless the touching was happening in the bedroom.

“Can we buy them from the vending machine?” Stiles asked over his shoulder so Lydia could hear him over all the chatter and squeaky bleacher sounds. 

“They’ve been out of order for months. Why am I not surprised you never noticed.” 

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned. “I don’t want to go back to the concession stand. The cashier lady hates me.” 

Lydia made a questioning sound that Stiles only barely just heard. 

“Yeah, she wasn’t too happy with me staring at her.”

They finally got out into the hallway where it was much quieter. Lydia let go of his arm and moved ahead of him slightly to take the lead towards the concessions booth. Stiles hurried to match her quick pace since she obviously wanted to get to the food line before all the other people that were shuffling behind them. 

“That’s probably because women don’t like to be stared at by creepy men,” Lydia said with a very pointed look directed at him. 

“I’m not creepy! I mean, okay, so maybe I was a little creepy to you before I started dating Derek. Take pity on me. I was an awkward turtle trying to flirt with Athena and Aphrodite’s love child,” he said.

Lydia scrunched up her nose as if pained. Stiles could tell by the gleam in her eyes that she was ready to school him on the relationships between Greek goddesses. It was the very same gleam that once subjected him to a ten minute tirade about how pandas and koalas were terrible animals. 

“Anyways!” he said loudly before she could start her rant. “I was staring at her because I swear I’ve seen her somewhere before. I was trying to figure it out and she got all huffy at me.” 

They finally made it to the concession stand. There were two lines now since it was so busy. Lydia bulldozed her way to the shortest line, cutting off a large family of six. Stiles gave them an apologetic look. 

Lydia suddenly broke out into a smile and tugged at Stiles’s arm. “That’s Allison’s aunt!” she said, discreetly gesturing to the same cashier lady that served Stiles earlier. “You’ve probably seen her from Allison’s lockscreen photo.” 

Allison’s aunt? Stiles stared at the cashier lady—er—Allison’s aunt, in confusion. Her features were still hard to make out since she was wearing a hat, but now that he was imagining Allison’s face beside hers, he could kind of see the resemblance from the lower half of the face. 

Did that mean she was a hunter like Chris and Victoria? The Hales had only told him so much about the Argents when they revealed the whole werewolf thing to him. Really all he knew was that the Hale’s had a pact with Chris and that Allison didn’t know anything about hunters or the supernatural world. Derek had never seemed that concerned about living in the same town with hunters, and Stiles pretty much forgot they existed except for when he saw Chris and Victoria at school functions. Still, he wouldn’t be surprised if Allison’s aunt was a hunter like them. 

“Okay…” Stiles said slowly, “but why is she here? Allison’s not here so why would she volunteer to work concessions?” 

Lydia’s mouth dropped open slightly and her eyes narrowed. 

“I… don’t know.” 

She pulled out her phone and stared at it. Stiles thought it looked like she was willing Allison to magically text her a reason for it. 

“We can just ask her when we get up there,” she said. 

“Good luck with that. She wouldn’t even tell me her name.” 

“Yeah, but you were being a creep, remember? She’s met me before,” Lydia said, using her phone camera as a mirror to fix her hair into place. “And her name’s Kate.” 

Kate. 

The name seemed to trigger something in Stiles’s brain. Something familiar. Something… not good. He couldn’t remember what exactly. The answer seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, but it was stuck behind a cloud of brain fog. It was nothing concrete. Just a feeling. A bad feeling. 

Why would he get a bad vibe from Allison’s aunt though? Maybe Allison mentioned her in a negative way? Or maybe Stiles just had a bad experience with a lady named Kate in the past and was now projecting his feelings onto any living person named Kate? 

Fuck. This was going to bug the shit out of him for the rest of the night. 

They waited quietly in line until it was finally their turn to order. Lydia braced her arms against the counter. Stiles stood slightly behind her, suddenly wishing Lydia was taller so he could hide behind her. 

Kate turned to look at them. Her brown eyes narrowed slightly when she looked at Stiles, but as soon as she saw Lydia, her expression and body language changed completely. 

“Lydia!” Kate said with a bright smile. “Good to see you again, kiddo! I didn’t think I’d run into you here tonight.” 

“I didn’t expect to see you here either!” Lydia said in a cheerful tone. “I’ve never seen you work the concessions before.”

Kate’s smile suddenly didn’t seem to reach her eyes anymore. She knocked her knuckles against the counter a few times and shifted from side to side. Stiles watched her fidget, wondering what she seemed to be so nervous about all of a sudden. 

“I know, yeah, this is my first time doing it. I just wanted to pick up a little money while I’m between jobs,” Kate said. “I saw this job advertised on one of the school sheets Allison brought home and thought I might as well take a whack at it. Why not, right? I get to take home a bunch of leftovers at the end. Sounds like a win to me.”

It sounded reasonable enough. Stiles always picked up odd jobs whenever he was strapped for cash, so he could relate on that front. It also supported Stiles’s theory that Kate was a hunter too. Maybe hunting jobs were limited at this time of year and that’s why she needed more money? Allison’s parents seemed pretty well off though. But he wasn’t sure if hunting was their main source of income or if hunting was more of a side job for them. 

Lost in thought, Stiles didn’t realize Lydia had already ordered and paid until she was shoving a blue Gatorade in his hand. Before he could tell her that Derek liked red better, Lydia settled a hand on his shoulder and nudged him out of the line. 

“Nice to see you again!” Lydia said to Kate, who responded in kind before turning to help the family that Lydia had cut off. 

“See? She’s not so bad when you don’t stare at her like a weirdo,” Lydia said on their way to the locker room. 

Stiles wasn’t going to waste his breath arguing with her on that one. 

“How long until halftime is over?” he asked. 

Lydia pulled out her phone and checked the time. “About seven minutes. We better hurry before they head back to the gym.” 

They picked up their pace and weaved through the people that were standing around in the hallway on their phones. The crowd thinned out the closer they got to the locker room since it was down the hall from the gym. 

“Can you send Jackson out here?” Lydia asked as soon as they were in front of the chipped beige locker room door. 

Stiles sighed dramatically. “Why must you entrust me with such a difficult task?” 

Lydia gave him an unimpressed look and smacked his arm. 

“Just do it you big baby. I’ll meet you back at our seats, okay?” 

“Will do, m’lady,” he said with a playful smile. 

He raced inside the locker room before she could try smacking him again. 

His ears were immediately assaulted by the team’s loud chatter. The coach must have already finished talking to them if they were just hanging out and talking now. Stiles wished they would open a window or something because it smelt fucking rank in there. It was a gross combination of sweat and a plethora of deodorant smells. He had no idea how Derek’s werewolf nose was surviving through it. 

“Yo, Jackson,” he called out once he was close enough to where Jackson was retying his shoes. 

Jackson looked up at him with tired eyes. His hair was wet with sweat and his face was red and shiny. Stiles couldn’t really smell him from where he was, but that didn’t mean Jackson wasn’t still contributing to the terrible stench in the room. 

“Lydia’s waiting outside for you,” he said, gesturing to the door. “She got you a drink.”

Jackson nodded, making his fringe flop against his forehead, and stood up. 

“Out of the way, Stilinski.” 

He didn’t even give Stiles time to move, he just straight up shoulder checked Stiles on his way out. Stiles winced and clutched at his now throbbing shoulder. Shit. He really should’ve seen that coming. Asshole. 

Stiles looked around the room and saw Derek heading towards him. His face was a little flushed, but other than that, he wasn’t dripping in sweat like the rest of the team was. Werewolf stamina was a gift like that. 

“Hey, I was hoping I’d see you,” Derek said with a smile. 

Derek reached out for him and drew him into a half hug. Stiles relaxed under his touch and laid his cheek against Derek’s broad shoulder. His shoulder was nice and warm. It was so comfy that Stiles just wanted to bury his face in Derek’s neck and go to sleep. 

“I got you a Gatorade,” Stiles said, blindly shoving said drink into Derek’s sternum. “Well, technically Lydia bought it for you. I’m just the delivery boy.” 

Derek took the drink from him and pouted. 

“Blue?” he said, wrinkling his nose. 

“Oh my god,” Stiles said. He stepped out of Derek’s hold and poked his stubbly cheek. “Don’t diss the blue or else I’ll hum “It’s a Small World” under my breath all throughout the third and fourth period.”

Derek stared at him with narrowed eyes. He had a look on his face that meant he knew Stiles would actually do it if provoked. 

“You were wrong before,” Derek said in a low voice. “I’m not a little monster, you are.” 

Stiles nearly spat in Derek’s face from laughing so hard. See? What did he say? Derek’s Lady Gaga references were too powerful for mere mortals to handle. 

Derek looked stupidly happy about making him laugh so hard. He reached over and brushed away a tear from the corner of Stiles’s eye. The gentle gesture made Stiles feel little flutters of happiness in his stomach. 

“You’re so stupid,” Stiles said fondly. “Don’t take the stupid with you out onto the court.” 

“That ship has already sailed,” Derek deadpanned. He reached his hand around Stiles’s back and started to trace the HALE name that was printed on his jersey. “You still going to cheer for me even if I get taken out of the game?”

“Cheer for what? Your great benchwarming skills?” Stiles shook his head. “How about you do us both a favor and don’t get fouled anymore?” 

Derek opened his mouth to respond right as the warning buzzer from the gym echoed down the hallway. The locker room suddenly got really loud as everyone got up and started slamming their lockers shut. 

Derek stepped in close by Stiles’s ear. “I gotta go. Tell Lydia I said thanks for the drink. I’ll meet you after the game, okay?” 

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Stiles saluted. “Go make Lady Gaga proud with your mad b-ball skills.” 

Derek smirked confidently. “Oh, don’t worry, I will.” 

They walked side by side out of the room towards the gym. A Kendrick Lamar song was playing on the gym speakers, echoing down the hall. Stiles bobbed his head along to the beat and sang along. Derek just grinned at him until they got to the gym doors. 

“See you in a bit,” Derek said. 

He gave Stiles’s hand a little squeeze before following his team to the court. Stiles was about to head to the bleachers before realizing that he needed to take a piss. He stood there frozen for a few seconds while deciding whether he should go now or wait until after the game. He looked up at the clock and saw that the third period wouldn’t start for two more minutes. Hm. Yeah, okay, he had enough time to go and make it back before the game started. 

Stiles turned on his heel back towards the concession stand. He thought it was a pretty bad design plan to have the bathrooms right beside the place where food was being made since bad smells traveled far and all that. But what did he know. It’s not like he was an engineer or anything. 

He went and did his business at a urinal as quickly as possible, thankful that the bathroom was practically empty of people at that point. He washed his hands, dried them off, and then walked out right as the last halftime buzzer went off. Perfect timing. 

“Hey, kid,” a familiar voice called out to him. 

Stiles turned and was surprised to see Kate staring at him. She had two full trash bags clutched in each of her hands and there was a third one sitting at her feet. She gestured to the one on the ground with her chin.

“Mind helping me carry this out?” she asked, quirking a brow at him. 

Stiles groaned internally. Of fucking course he’d get asked to do something like this right when the game was starting. But it’s not like he could just say no. First of all, it was rude. And his dad didn’t raise him to be a rude asshole like Jackson. Secondly, Allison would probably kick his ass if she found out that he was an unhelpful jerk to her aunt. And having Allison mad at him would probably put him on the receiving end of Scott’s puppy dog eyes. Stiles couldn’t handle Scott’s puppy dog eyes, okay? They were too powerful and made him do things he didn’t want to do, like apologize. 

“Sure,” Stiles said, hoping his face wasn’t betraying how annoyed he was. 

He scooped the third trash bag off the ground and followed her out the double doors that led to the dumpsters. The cold air immediately nipped at his skin, making him shiver. Shit. He shouldn’t have left his hoodie on the bleachers. 

“You’re not on the team, are you?” Kate asked him while launching the first bag of trash into the dumpster with barely any effort. Almost like she was used to throwing heavy shit around. 

He glanced at her arms, trying to see how muscular they were. A hunter would probably be pretty fit, right? Unless she just hit the gym a lot like Allison. Either way, it was impossible to tell with her jacket in the way. 

He looked back up at her face and realized she was staring at the maroon jersey he was wearing. 

“Oh, no,” Stiles said, trying not to let her see the HALE lettering on his back. “My boyfriend’s on the team. I’m just wearing his jersey to cheer him on.” 

Kate hummed. “That’s cute.” 

Stiles shifted impatiently, wishing she would hurry the fuck up so he could get back to the game. He was freezing his nips off out here. Plus, Lydia was probably wondering where he wandered off to. 

His phone started blaring out of nowhere, making him jump. He tossed his trash bag closer to Kate’s feet and then grabbed his phone out of his pocket. The caller ID revealed that it was Peter calling him. Why in the hell would Peter be calling him when he knew that Stiles was at Derek’s game? Sure, sometimes Peter called him randomly to discuss some research he’d found, but that was usually only when Peter was out of town. And as far as Stiles knew, Peter was in Beacon Hills. 

Confused, he answered the call. 

“Hello?” 

“Stiles!” Peter said, sounding somewhat frantic. “Are you and Derek still at the game?” 

“Yeah… why?” Stiles asked, watching as Kate threw the second trash bag into the dumpster. 

“Do you remember what I told you a few months ago about the Parker pack spotting hunters in their area? And how the hunters might cross through Beacon Hills?” Peter asked so quickly he was practically tripping over his words. The panic laced in his voice was very un-Peter like behavior. 

Stiles’s heart started to beat faster. He thought about the dinner he had at the Hale’s house a few months ago. Vaguely, he remembered Peter mentioning some hunters coming to the area, but Stiles hadn’t thought much of it at the time since Peter didn’t sound too concerned about it. In fact, he made it sound like something him and Chris would handle if it became a problem. Since then, Stiles just kind of forgot about it.

There was just one big problem though. 

“Peter,” Stiles whispered as his hands started to shake. He stared at Kate, who was looking right at him with her piercing brown eyes. A shot of anxiety suddenly filled his chest and his breathing started to get more rapid. “Remind me what the hunter’s names were again…”

“Kate and Gerard,” Peter said, oblivious to how it caused Stiles’s heart rate to skyrocket. “I showed you a picture of them once, remember? Listen, don’t you dare interact with them if you see them. Chris said his men might have spotted Gerard in town today, so you and Derek need to watch out for them. They don’t follow the code like Chris does.” 

Stiles clutched his phone in his hand so hard, he was sure his fingerprints were probably molded into the plastic. God, he was such a moron. He should have taken the hunter threat more seriously when Peter mentioned it all those months ago. He should've written down their names and saved their pictures. He sure as hell wished someone would have mentioned that one of the hunters happened to be related to Chris rather than having to piece the clues together himself. But none of that happened and now he was _fucked._  


“Yeah, okay, quick question,” Stiles rambled, taking a few steps back towards the school. “What do I do if Kate is standing right in front of me and looks like she wants to kill me? Because that’s what’s happening right now and I — ”

Stiles screamed in surprise as Kate suddenly rushed at him with the third trash bag, using it as a weapon to slam into his face. His phone went flying out of his hand and the force of the blow made Stiles fall on his ass. Before he could scream again, a hand with sharp nails covered his mouth and a foot slammed down onto his sternum, making him grunt in pain. Stiles gripped onto Kate’s wrist, trying to regain some control of the situation. She easily broke his hold and dug her nails into his face.

The blood in his head was pounding so loud that he almost didn’t register the sound of Peter screaming his name through his phone. 

“Nobody likes a blabbermouth, sweetie,” Kate said in a sickly sweet voice. She used her free hand to reach into the inside of her jacket. The gun she pulled out and aimed at Stiles’s face made him feel numb all over. “That’s why I’m going to put a bullet in your throat if I hear another peep out of you.” 

Well, shit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was completely inspired by the job I used to have which was being the time keeper/scorer for high school basketball games. 
> 
> This is my first time writing for the Teen Wolf fandom so I hope I'm doing alright so far. Derek is obviously much more open since this occurs when his family is alive. So he's not traumatized and doesn't have a shit ton of guilt weighing him down. 
> 
> And yes, Stiles thought Kate looked familiar because Peter once showed him a picture of her and Gerard. But it had been months since Stiles had seen the picture or heard about Kate, so that's why he didn't connect the dots. He's very far removed from the hunters since the Hale's are there to take care of that kind of thing. So it's not like he's super up-to-date on the Argents or anything. And let's just say Peter didn't really drill home the fact that the hunters were related to Chris.


	2. Chapter 2

In a word, Stiles was scared. No, scratch that. Terrified. As in, he was about to piss his pants because Allison’s crazy aunt was threatening to blow his head off with a gun. 

He’d obviously seen guns before since his dad was the sheriff. He even knew how to shoot them. He wasn’t the best shot in the world, but regardless, he’d still been to the gun range and been taught how to shoot. That was all good and well because the only thing he’d ever shot at was a paper target. No harm, no foul done against a piece of paper. 

But Stiles wasn’t a fucking piece of paper, now was he? He was 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bones with sarcasm as his only defense. He didn’t have tough werewolf skin and he sure as shit didn’t have the ability to heal himself in seconds. He was just a human, and up until this point, that had never been a problem. 

“I’m glad your friend knows that I’m here,” Kate said, gesturing over at his phone that was sprawled a few feet away. “It makes my job a whole lot easier.”

Peter had stopped yelling Stiles’s name a few seconds ago, probably assuming Stiles was in no position to respond. Stiles didn’t know if the call was still connected and Peter was listening or if Peter had hung up. He just hoped the silence meant Peter was on his way to come help him. 

Stiles swallowed audibly. “Easier how?”

His chin started to tremble when Kate pressed the cold tip of the gun against his forehead. He had no idea if it was because it was freezing outside or if it was a fear response. Either way, it only made Kate smile in a smug sort of way. Like scaring him was some kind of personal achievement for her. 

“He’ll be more worried about Derek than he will be about you.”

A cold feeling of fear crept up Stiles’s spine. Fuck, what did that mean? Was Derek in trouble? Was he hurt? That couldn’t be possible because Derek was inside playing in the game. No one would attack him in front of so many witnesses, right?

“Listen lady, I’m really not in the mood for all this cryptic bullsh—”

He screamed as Kate used her free foot to stomp hard on his left wrist. Sharp pain started pulsing from his hand and Stiles instinctively tried to pull his arm closer to himself to protect it, but Kate knocked it away, which only made him cry out again.

He clenched his teeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to wrap his head around the fact that his wrist had just been snapped in half like a goddamn Kit Kat bar. 

Kate tutted at him as if he was being ridiculous. “That should be the least of your worries right now, kid.”

On one hand, she was right. He currently had a lunatic holding him down and threatening to shoot him. That was definitely high up on the list of things to worry about. On the other hand, she just broke one of his bones for no good reason. If she was willing to do that, there was no telling what other type of shit she’d do to him unprovoked. For all he knew, death could be the more merciful option of the two. 

Stiles tried to make a fist with his hurt hand to assess the damage. He winced as soon as his thumb moved, feeling a deep, pulsing soreness emanating from his wrist to the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger. God, that hurt. 

Kate suddenly became very still above him. Her eyes narrowed, staring towards the school. Without looking, she moved her left hand to put pressure on Stiles’s throat. It wasn’t enough to choke him, but the way she dug her fingers into his neck when he moved made it clear that she wouldn’t hesitate to apply more pressure if he tried anything. It was a very vulnerable position for him to be in. Stiles hated it. 

“Idiot. I knew he’d come running once he heard you screaming,” Kate grinned.

Stiles barely had time to process that before the gun moved away from his face and was directed at, what Stiles assumed to be, the double doors that lead into the school. The metal of the door hinges creaked loudly as someone slammed one of the doors open. Stiles jerked at the sound, feeling Kate’s sharp nails bite into his neck. 

“Stiles!” he heard Derek shout, voice full of shock. 

Stiles’s anxiety went through the fucking roof. 

“Derek!” he yelled back, trying to turn his head around so he could see what was going on. 

Kate’s hand constricted around Stiles’s throat a little tighter in warning. His pulse was beating hard against her hand. 

Derek started to growl in a loud and guttural way that Stiles had only heard from tigers on old Animal Planet shows. If he didn’t know Derek and hadn’t become accustomed to the wide range of vocal sounds werewolves were capable of making, he would’ve found it terrifying. As it was, it just made his skin prickle. He was sure it would’ve given him goosebumps if he hadn’t already had them from the cold. 

“He’s not a wolf,” Derek said. The sound of gravel crunching made it sound like Derek was slowly shifting closer. “You need to let him go.”

Stiles turned his head enough to see Derek standing a few feet away from them in nothing but his basketball uniform. His hazel colored eyes had been replaced by bright gold ones. Stiles had seen Derek’s gold eyes hundreds of times before. It was almost always when he was at the Hale house or when Derek was inside of Stiles’s room. So seeing him with gold eyes at school was a strange experience, especially since he was directing them at Kate with extreme _I want to rip your throat out_ vibes. 

“Or what?” Kate asked with her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, clearly enjoying this. 

Derek growled louder. “Or I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth.” 

Did Stiles know his boyfriend or did he _know_ his boyfriend? Ten points for him. 

Kate laughed, amused. “You sure you want to show your little boyfriend here what kind of monster you actually are?” 

“Hey—” 

Stiles was cut off as Kate tightened her hand around his throat again, making him choke on his next words. His hand reflexively went up to grip at Kate’s wrist to try and relieve some of the pressure. 

Derek made a concerned whine in the back of his throat, which only seemed to rile Kate up even more, judging by her shit eating grin. 

“I don’t know, Der-bear, showing off your murder skills to save your boyfriend doesn’t really sound like couple goals to me,” she said mockingly. 

Somebody needed to hand Stiles a rusted fork so he could stab her in the eyes with it repeatedly. Seriously. This lady made him want to throw fucking hands. He could only imagine what kind of violent scenarios Derek was probably wanting to implement against her.

The grip on his neck loosened again, much to Stiles’s relief. The foot she was using to pin Stiles to the ground was still a problem though. His sternum and his ribs were fucking screaming under the heavy boot she was wearing. It made Stiles feel trapped and restless. Like he was going to go insane unless she gave him some space. 

They needed a way out of this situation, pronto. Kind of hard to do that with the gun in the equation though. Stiles could only assume the gun was full of bullets infused with wolfsbane since Kate was a werewolf hunter and all, which meant there was no way Derek could do anything in his current position without possibly dying. 

Stiles’s mind raced to try and come up with some kind of plan. His only options were to try and distract Kate or stall long enough for Peter to get there. But Stiles didn’t even know if Peter or any of the Hale’s were on the way to help. He sure as hell hoped they were since both his and Derek’s lives were in danger, but he couldn’t rely on the idea that they would magically come save them before Kate did something insane.

The wind started to kick up just then. Stiles could hardly focus on how numb from the cold he was because his eyes immediately locked on Kate’s long, blonde hair, which began to blow in different directions. Mesmerized, he watched as her hair continued to dance around until it finally came back to a still when the wind died down. It dangled right above Stiles’s face because of the way Kate was positioned over him. 

A light bulb went off in his head. 

“I’ll give myself up if you let him go,” Derek said, voice thin and shaking with rage. 

Stiles screwed his eyes shut, feeling actual pain at how desperate Derek sounded. He’d never heard Derek sound so distressed before, and in turn, that made Stiles feel stressed and angry. _So_ angry. Not at Derek. No, never at Derek. It was anger directed at the she-demon perched over him. 

That was why he felt absolutely zero remorse for grabbing a fistful of her hair and wrenching her head backwards as hard as he could. 

Kate’s face twisted into a grimace as she cried out in pain, her whole body flailing as she was knocked off balance. Stiles brought his legs up and slammed them into her pelvis, making her trip backwards onto her ass. He backpedalled away from her as quickly as he could with his newly broken wrist, his adrenaline screaming at him to _run, run, run._

There was a white flash out of the corner of Stiles’s eye, and before he knew it, Derek was on top of Kate, wrestling for the gun. His fangs were out, mouth all scrunched up in a snarl, and his gold eyes looked thunderous in the dark. 

Kate’s cry of shock was nearly drowned out by the deep rumbling sound Derek was making. Stiles stumbled to his feet, feeling as tense as an over-tuned guitar, and watched as Derek used his super strength to hold Kate down with one hand while ripping the gun out of Kate’s grasp with the other. 

Derek fumbled with the gun for a second like he was trying to figure out the best way to hold it. Stiles could tell Derek had never held a gun before by the awkward way he settled on holding it with only one hand instead of two, his grip on it tight enough to make his muscles bulge. It was so surreal for Stiles to see him holding a gun and to actually be pointing it at another person like this was some kind of action movie. 

Derek leveled the gun at Kate and stood. Kate glared at him, looking cautious, but not necessarily scared. She looked more pissed off than anything. Stiles would take it over her infuriatingly smug grin. 

Derek walked backwards towards Stiles with his left arm outstretched behind him, clearly seeking Stiles out without taking his eyes off Kate. Stiles didn’t hesitate to close the distance between them and to grab onto Derek’s hand, holding it bone-crushingly tight. 

“Holy shit, Der,” Stiles choked out. 

He pressed his forehead against Derek’s warm back and breathed in his familiar woodsy scent, finding some comfort in it even though he still felt strung the fuck out. Derek let out a shuddery breath in response and seemed to relax a little bit now that he was shielding Stiles from Kate. He gave Stiles’s hand a squeeze and brushed his thumb over Stiles’s knuckles. 

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, the concern in his voice so evident that Stiles wanted to hug him and never him let go. 

“I—yeah. I mean, my wrist is kind of fucked, but I’m okay.” 

And alright maybe that was a lie because Stiles was feeling a little traumatized by having both his and Derek’s lives threatened. If he was lucky, maybe he’d come out of this situation with minimal symptoms of PTSD. But that was something to worry about when he was at home and not when he was still standing outside in a Mexican standoff with his attacker. 

Stiles was jostled from his position against Derek’s back when Derek suddenly shifted his arms higher. Stiles didn’t understand why until he peeked over Derek’s shoulder and realized it was because Kate was now standing instead of sprawled out on the ground. 

Her hair was in a bit of disarray since the hat she’d been wearing had gotten knocked off her head in the scuffle, but other than that, she looked strangely composed for someone who had a gun pointed at her. 

“Your little boyfriend is more ballsy than I thought,” she said, nodding her head at Stiles. The confident step she took towards them was just as predatory as her smile. “What about you, Derek? You think you have the balls to shoot me? To take someone’s life? I bet you don’t.”

Stiles suddenly had _so_ many questions about Kate’s decision to stand there and taunt them rather than run away when she didn’t have the upper hand in the situation anymore. She was a werewolf hunter that threatened to shoot two teenagers at a school, so clearly she wasn’t the most rational person alive. That still didn’t explain her current behavior unless she was drugged up on something. He’d heard some wild stories from his dad about the kind of trouble people on drugs got into when they weren’t in their right state of mind. Still, Kate didn’t look like she’d been taking anything other than the Kool-Aid that apparently made her think werewolves were evil monsters. 

Stiles didn’t know how dangerous she was to them at this point. Since she didn’t have a weapon anymore, he felt like he could probably call his dad to come and arrest her. Well, either that or call Talia and have her handle it. How the fuck else were they going to get Kate to leave them alone otherwise? Unless they just walked back into the school and hoped she wouldn’t follow them inside. 

He reached into his pocket for his phone, only to remember that it had flown out of his hand when Kate attacked him with the trash bag. And of fucking course the phone had to be behind Kate instead of being within his arms reach. And _of course_ Derek wouldn’t have his phone on him either because he literally left in the middle of his game to come racing out here. 

The way Stiles saw it, that left them with five options: 

  1. Walk back inside and hope Kate didn’t follow them.
  2. Stall and wait for help from Peter (who may or may not be coming).
  3. Have Derek howl for help (and honestly, now that he was thinking about it, he wished Derek had thought of doing that way sooner).
  4. Do something stupid like somehow knock Kate out and then make a run for it.
  5. Scream for some random people to come help them.



Stiles’s mind was racing so fast that if this were a cartoon, there would probably be smoke coming out of his ears. He tried to weigh the pros and cons of each option, wishing time could just stop for a damn second so he could think without his anxiety threatening to swallow him whole. All he ended up deciding on was that options 1 and 5 were out since he didn’t want random people to end up getting hurt because of them. 

Derek interrupted his thoughts by gripping his hand tighter. Stiles wasn’t sure why until he moved to the side and saw that headlights were shining on the side of Kate’s face, illuminating her whole profile. A large, black SUV was driving towards them, and for a hot second, Stiles thought it belonged to the Hales since Derek’s dad, Henry, drove the same kind of model. Except, it couldn’t be Henry’s because Henry’s didn’t have a cargo carrier attached to the top. 

Kate crossed her arms as she watched the car pull up. She looked at the windshield, presumably at whoever was driving, with an annoyed scowl.

“Jesus Christ, finally,” she yelled impatiently when the car stopped just behind her. 

Stiles felt like he was going to throw up because that was clearly Kate’s backup. 

“Derek,” he said, yanking way too hard on Derek’s hand out of fear. “Drop the gun. We need to run right fucking n—”

Derek suddenly turned towards Stiles with wide, panicked eyes. His mouth moved in a silent apology before he placed his hands on Stiles’s chest and shoved him backwards. It was so unexpected that Stiles barely had time to protect his wrist before he fell over on his back a few feet away. The air in his chest evaporated, the fall having knocked the wind out of his lungs. 

Oh shit, oh fuck. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to inhale, but his chest refused to rise. The hollow feeling in his chest was too much. Stiles’s nails raked against the ground as he writhed in panic. He couldn’t breathe. His hands were starting to shake and he couldn’t fucking _breathe_. His chest tried to rise but couldn’t. No air. No relief. 

Stiles desperately tried to suck in air once more and finally managed a small amount, wheezing from the effort. The relief that coursed through his body was so intense that the only thing he could do for a few seconds was just lay there, sucking in large amounts of air through his mouth to make sure that was something his body was still capable of doing. 

The relief he felt was shattered as soon as he heard a muffled shot that made him jump so hard, he nearly brained himself against the concrete. His ears started to ring painfully from the loud sound, and his heart thundered in his chest so violently that he felt like it was about to rip right out of his chest. 

Then he heard Derek’s cry of pain. 

No. 

No, _no_ , **no.** This was not fucking happening. This was not—

Stiles jerked upright in Derek’s direction to seek him out. 

“Der,” he whimpered, unable to take his eyes off Derek’s too still body on the ground. 

Derek was crumpled over on his side in a strangely stiff manner, his hands seeming frozen over the part of his chest that had been shot. The blood was incredibly visible on his white shirt, even in the dark. There was also black blood running out of the corner of his mouth, dripping down by his wound that was slowly starting to become a mixture of red and black. The worst part was that he was making small, wet gasping sounds that tore at Stiles’s heart. 

“That should do it,” a man standing a few feet away from Derek said with a very distinguished Texas accent. His face was shadowed by an orange Texas Longhorn hat, making it nearly impossible to see any of his features in the dark other than his long, brown colored beard. “The kanima venom will keep ‘im from movin’ for a good while. Now we just gotta let the wolfsbane run its course.” 

Stiles had no idea what a kanima was, but clearly it was something dangerous if its venom was strong enough to keep a werewolf from moving. 

“That’s two down so far,” Kate said, satisfied. She gestured over at Stiles. “Now take the kid and get going. I need to make some calls to the other nimrods to see if everything has been taken care of on their end.”

A gloved hand grabbed the back of Stiles’s neck and shoved his face down to the ground, a knee digging into Stiles’s back to pin him. He cried out in surprise, not having noticed there was another hunter there other than Kate and Texas. 

Stiles was so fucking sick and tired of being manhandled by hunters. Not to mention, he was pretty pissed off that they had actually _shot_ Derek. God, Stiles was so worried about him. He had no way of knowing how close Derek was to actually _dying_ , and that was so terrifying to think about that Stiles couldn’t help the hot tears that suddenly gathered at the corners of his eyes. 

He wished he had a time-turner like Hermione so he could rewind this horrible night. Or shit, Stiles wished he’d never followed Kate outside in the first place. If he had never followed her, Derek wouldn’t be dying. He was such an idiot. He had a bad feeling about Kate from the get-go and he should’ve listened to his stupid instincts. But no. He let his guard down after seeing how harmless Kate seemed with Lydia, and now he and Derek were both fucked!

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He suddenly felt exhausted from his constant adrenaline high over the last twenty minutes, or however long it had been since Kate had lured him outside. It made something inside of his chest feel raw. Like a nerve that had been touched too many times. 

And although Stiles was bone tired, freezing, and more stressed than he’d ever been in his life, he felt an intense need to check on Derek to see if he could help him. Derek couldn’t go out like this. He couldn’t just die when he had so much more life to live. He couldn’t die without knowing how much Stiles loved him. And fuck, Stiles loved him a lot. He’d die for that broody bastard in a heartbeat, and he _had_ to make sure Derek knew that. Stiles couldn’t live with himself otherwise. So even with the gravel biting into his face, he tried to use the last of his energy to buck the hunter off him, hoping he could make a run for it to Derek. 

“Cut that out,” the hunter on top of him grunted in his surprisingly Australian accent. 

Stiles ignored him and continued flailing his legs, managing to make them connect to the Aussie’s backside a few times before the hunter got smart and moved to Stiles’s side instead.

Stiles screamed in frustration. “Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_!” 

He struggled even harder, his own strength surprising him. Aussie almost lost his hold on him. 

“Christ, you’re a salty little cunt, aren’t ya? Not that I really blame ya,” Aussie muttered under his breath. 

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Stiles said, balling his hand into a fist and blindly throwing it backwards towards Aussie. 

Bad idea. Aussie caught Stiles’s wrists and wrenched them backwards, ignoring Stiles’s grunt of pain as his injured wrist started to throb. He got a pair of handcuffs slapped on his wrists for his trouble. Aussie wasted no time in sitting on Stiles’s legs to keep them from moving as he pulled out a pair of leg cuffs and attached them around Stiles’s ankles. 

“There we are, mate,” Aussie said in a soothing tone as if Stiles was his fucking son or something. He ruffled Stiles’s hair roughly. “You’re alright, you’re alright. Let’s get ya in the car, yeah?” 

Derek’s growl pierced the air. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this!”

His voice sounded so weak and pained. Stiles was thrilled to hear him speak because it meant he was alive, but he quickly realized that this could possibly be the last time he and Derek got to speak to each other. The very idea of never getting to do anything with Derek ever again made Stiles feel like he just got sucker punched in the stomach. And now that he was all chained up with no possible way to make it to Derek’s side, he needed to speak his mind before the hunters shipped him off to god-knows-where. 

“Der,” he whispered, lips trembling from the cold. He made sure to be as quiet as possible so that there was no possible way anyone other than Derek would be able to understand what he was saying. “I’m sorry that I didn’t remember Kate was a hunter. I could’ve kept this from happening—I just.” He took a shaky breath. “If you make it and I don’t… please tell my dad what happened to me. I don’t want him to—I don’t want him wondering what happened, okay? I’m sorry for asking but I—fuck. Fuck. I love you. And I just want you to know that I don’t blame you for anything.”

There was no response other than Derek making a high pitched whining sound in the back of his throat. Stiles felt like that was a pretty accurate description of how he was feeling too. 

Aussie bent down towards Stiles with a quirked brow. It was Stiles’s first chance to get a good look at him. He was tall, blonde, and built. Kind of like a twenty-something version of the dude from that HGTV show. What was his name again? Chip Gaines or something?

The way Aussie’s eyes darted between Stiles and Derek indicated he knew Stiles had said something to Derek, but instead of getting mad about it, he simply plastered a piece of duct tape over Stiles’s mouth. Then he positioned Stiles’s legs and arms in a certain way so that he could scoop Stiles over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The position made the handcuffs bite into Stiles’s skin in an extremely uncomfortable way. He didn’t think Aussie would really care if he complained about it though. 

Aussie headed towards the SUV with a tight grip on Stiles to make sure he wouldn’t try and break out of the hold, which was stupid. Like he could possibly get anywhere with cuffs tying his legs together. 

Kate paused her conversation with whoever she was on the phone with. “Don’t make any pit stops,” she said to Aussie. “Take him straight there and wait for my text before doing anything else. And don’t forget to drag the mutt behind the dumpsters before you go. I’m heading out.” 

There? Where was there? Some kind of torture house? Stiles was only slightly comforted to know that it didn’t sound like they were going to kill him straight away, and that he would hopefully have some time to come up with a plan to escape. 

He was also relieved to hear that the hunters were apparently leaving Derek behind. That meant Derek could still call for help! He could call for the pack, or hell, for any random person walking by, and have them drive him to Deaton’s. Deaton would know what to do, right? 

A thought suddenly occurred to Stiles, making dread fill his stomach. What if the mixture of the kanima venom and the wolfsbane lead to a quicker death? What if they weren’t taking Derek because they didn’t expect him to live longer than a few more minutes? 

Shit, shit, _shit_. 

Stiles’s anxiety suddenly made a full-fledged return.

Aussie, completely oblivious to Stiles’s panic, responded with a casual, “Sure thing,” before walking past Kate. 

They had to pass Derek on their way to the car. Stiles stretched his neck above Aussie’s shoulder, desperately seeking out Derek one last time. To his surprise, Derek was already staring right at him, gold eyes locked onto Stiles’s face. The way they were illuminated in the dark only highlighted how wet his eyes looked. 

Stiles tried so hard to ignore how much worse Derek looked in such a short amount of time with his pale skin and blood soaked jersey. Black blood also covered the entirety of his chin. Stiles wondered if he had thrown up at some point while Stiles had been wrestling around with the hunter. 

For Derek’s sake, Stiles tried to put on a brave face for him. He didn’t want to let Derek see just how terrified he was. Not that it really mattered when Derek probably smelt it on him.

Derek’s eyes flickered over Stiles’s face. “I love you,” he mouthed silently. 

Even if Stiles didn’t have the duct tape over his mouth, he didn’t think he’d be able to speak because of the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. 

He nodded in response, the moment between them coming to an abrupt end as Aussie plopped Stiles into the trunk of the car. Stiles couldn’t help but wince as he realized his arms would be underneath his back for the whole trip. His wrist was already feeling pretty tender since it was crushed between him and the car. The only bright side about the situation was that the seats had been laid flat so that he could fully stretch his legs out. 

“Oi, turn the heater up,” Aussie said to Texas, who was seated behind the wheel and staring at Stiles like he was some kind of troublesome vermin. “The kid’s turning blue.” 

Right. Stiles had almost forgotten how cold he was. His fingers and toes were especially numb. They were the kind of cold that only a hot shower would fix. He knew these hunters definitely weren’t going to let him have one though. At the very least, they had better let him have a pee break or else they were going to have a problem on their hands. 

Texas made a disgruntled sound under his breath, but sure enough, Stiles heard him pressing a button on the dashboard that would increase the heat. 

Aussie hovered by Stiles’s legs, looking uncertain about something. 

“We’ve got one of them weighted blankets back here. I’m gonna put it over ya. Help ya get warm and also weigh ya down so we don’t have to worry about ya playing peek-a-boo with passing cars, yeah?”

Stiles gave him an odd look, not sure why Aussie seemed to give two shits about his well-being. It started off with Aussie making an attempt to comfort Stiles, and now he was worrying about how cold Stiles was. It seemed like weird behavior for someone who’d been hired to kidnap him. Stiles expected a more openly hostile attitude like Kate’s or a cold, silently loathing attitude like Texas’s. But Aussie? Aussie was acting like Stiles was some kind of wild animal that had been injured and needed to be nurtured back to health. It was completely ironic to look at it that way considering Aussie had easily left an injured werewolf behind. 

The heaviness of the blanket shocked Stiles as soon as Aussie threw it on top of him and adjusted it to cover his body properly. The heat the blanket provided was like heaven for his ice cold skin, but the actual weight of the blanket—probably about 18 pounds if Stiles had to guess—made Stiles panic slightly. He felt _too_ restrained with both the blanket and the cuffs.

Stiles started to breathe a little bit harder through his nose, wishing so badly that there wasn’t duct tape on his mouth so that he could tell Aussie to take the blanket off of him, or at least, only have it cover half his body instead. 

“Get it off! Let me out!” Stiles tried to scream through the tape, only for it to sound like absolute gibberish.

Aussie briefly looked at Stiles’s face before he gave Stiles’s ankle a final pat. “Just take a nap, mate. We’ll be there before you know it.” Then he stepped backwards and slammed the trunk shut. 

He disappeared for a few minutes, probably moving Derek like Kate asked him to. Texas said nothing in his absence. Stiles stared up at the ceiling, trying to pretend this wasn’t fucking happening. 

Reality crashed back in as soon as Aussie climbed in the passenger seat and shut his door. 

Stiles’s heart sank. 

Texas stepped on the gas. 

Everything suddenly felt like too much. Kate pointing a gun at him. Derek getting shot. Stiles being tied up and abducted. Not being able to move. Not knowing whether Derek was going to make it or if he was going to die. Not knowing where the hunters were currently taking him. 

Suddenly, all he could think about was the one thing his dad had told him countless times while giving him time the stranger danger talk.

“Never let them take you to a second location. Most people don’t make it out alive beyond that point.”

Thinking about his dad was the final straw that triggered Stiles’s panic attack. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and felt his heart skipping beats that made him lose his breath. He writhed under the blanket. Hot. Hot. _Hot_. Too Hot. The stupid tape over his mouth made everything worse. He couldn’t fucking breathe properly. There wasn’t enough air inside the fucking van. He tried breathing in huge gulps of air through his nose, but his chest felt too compressed to rise properly. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. He couldn’t breathe. No air. He tried sucking in through his mouth again, forgetting about the tape. **No air** _._

Black dots started appearing in the corner of Stiles’s eyes like static on a TV. More static started to buzz in his feet. No, that wasn’t right, was it? Fuck. Fuck. Pins and needles! Pins and needles were stabbing at his feet. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want it. He lifted his feet as high in the air as he could so that he could slam them back down to make the sensation go away. 

“What in the hell is he doin’ back there?” 

Stiles didn’t know which of the fucking goons said it. He didn’t care. How was he supposed to care when he couldn’t even _breathe_? 

“Shit. Hold on.” 

What if Derek couldn’t breathe anymore either because he was dead? What if he was scared and alone when he died? What if he died and no one found his body for days because he’d been stashed behind a disgusting dumpster? What if flies started to eat him like they would a piece of roadkill?

Derek didn’t deserve that. Derek didn’t—

Pain flared up around Stiles’s mouth. 

“Easy, easy,” a familiar voice said. 

Stiles looked up with his blurry vision and saw a blonde man leaning over him with a piece of duct tape held between his fingers. Aussie. Right. 

“Take some big breaths,” Aussie said. “In through the mouth, out through the nose.” 

Stiles was too tired to argue. He shut his eyes again and greedily sucked in a large gulp of air through his mouth. 

“What do you think you’re doin’? Put that back on his mouth before he starts yellin’!” Texas said heatedly. 

“Fuck off! He’s obviously struggling to breathe!” 

“Who cares! Let 'im suffocate himself then!” 

“Just shut up and drive, dickhead!” 

Stiles breathed out through his nose. 

“Push the blanket off my chest,” he managed to say through an uneven breath. “S’too heavy. Can’t—I can’t…” 

Aussie immediately reached down and peeled the blanket down just under Stiles’s belly button. The lack of pressure made some of his panic fade. He realized he could take a breath big enough to make his entire chest rise. It was such a relief that Stiles did it over and over until the black static started to recede from his vision. 

He tried counting too. His fingers were too numb to count so he tried visualizing his fingers in his head instead. 

For the longest time, all he did was just count and breathe. Count and breathe. Count and breathe. He kept it up until the worst of the panic attack had faded, leaving him with only heart palpitations and a feeling of deep exhaustion. 

He wasn’t really sure what happened after that. His mind just kind of faded into a blank state where the only thing he was aware of was the sound of the car on the road. It felt safer to focus on that and to pretend he was just trying to take a nap on a road trip rather than think about the reality of the situation. 

That’s how the rest of the car ride went. The goons stayed quiet and so did Stiles. 

Nothing disrupted the quiet atmosphere that had been created until a little bit later when Stiles heard the sound of the key turning off the engine. 

He tensed. This was it then. 

“I’ll get him outta the boot, you go open the door,” Aussie said to Texas.

Texas grunted in acknowledgement and they both exited the car. 

The trunk door opened, letting in a gust of cold wind that brought up goosebumps on Stiles’s arms. He’d actually managed to warm up at some point during the drive, so he wasn’t looking forward to being doused back into the cold. 

Aussie pushed the blanket off of Stiles’s legs and then grabbed a fistful of Stiles’s shirt so that he could pull him into a sitting position. Stiles’s arms felt so dead and heavy as soon as they weren’t glued to his backside anymore. They immediately started to tingle uncomfortably with pins and needles. 

“Where are we?” Stiles demanded, trying not so subtly to shake his arms around a little to help with the circulation.

“Somewhere in a land called California,” Aussie said with a great hand flourish. “They’ve got hipsters and vegans and gluten-free bakeries, oh my!” 

Asshole. 

“Yeah, no shit, Kangaroo Jack. What part of California? Which county?”

“Kangaroo Jack!” Aussie wheezed, genuinely laughing so hard that he had to brace his hands against the side of the car. “That was an absolute piss poor shot, mate. Why the hell am I even laughing?”

Stiles quirked a brow. “I can’t imagine there’s much worth laughing about around people like Kate Argent and Mr. Texas Ranger over there,” he said, gesturing in the direction he thought Texas walked off in. 

The smile on Aussie’s face started to drop, clearly realizing Stiles wasn't in the best mood. 

“Right, yeah. Let’s get ya inside then. I’m freezing my bloody nuts off.” 

Stiles wanted to point out that if anyone had a right to complain about the cold, by all means, it should’ve been him. He was only wearing a sleeveless shirt for God’s sake, while Aussie at least had on a sherpa-lined jacket. 

Aussie picked Stiles back up in a fireman’s carry position, which, again, was very uncomfortable with the cuffs in the equation. Other than his own discomfort, the first thing Stiles noticed was the gravel driveway Aussie was walking around on. Not many people in the suburbs or the city had gravel driveways. The second thing Stiles noticed was that the air quality was really good. Kind of like how breathing felt a little easier whenever Stiles went to the Hale’s house in the preserve since it wasn’t as caught up in the city’s pollution. 

As soon as he was able to look up, he realized it was because they seemed to be on a farm in the middle of nowhere. They were surrounded by acres and acres of land. There were trees around the back of the house, and the grass around the property looked overgrown like it hadn’t been managed in a long time. 

The house itself looked extremely modern like it had either just been built or remodeled recently. It was a two story, whitewashed house that was probably just about as big as what the Hale’s lived in. 

Stiles could see Texas waiting impatiently at the door for them. His arms were crossed and he gave Stiles a tired, disgruntled look as soon as Aussie carried him inside. 

The house had an open floor plan, making it easy for Stiles to locate the kitchen, living room, and the dining room. The wood floors gleamed, having absolutely no furniture to cover them. The empty house made Aussie’s footsteps echo through the rooms. 

“Might as well let ya have a piss down here before getting ya settled upstairs,” Aussie said, heading towards a bathroom that was beside the living room. 

Stiles was relieved he was getting a bathroom break since all the pent up anxiety in his stomach made him feel like he was about to shit his pants. 

Aussie slowly bent over until Stiles slid off his shoulders and landed awkwardly on his feet. 

“I’m gonna switch your cuffs from backside to frontside so I don’t have to hold your dick for ya,” Aussie said, only just barely smiling. 

Texas shuffled his way over to them and made sure to hold onto Stiles a little tighter than necessary to make sure he didn’t try anything. Because apparently Stiles was still a threat even though his fucking legs were tied together. 

He secretly steamed about that while Aussie pulled out a pair of keys and started undoing the cuffs. 

“Your left wrist is looking a bit swollen, mate,” Aussie said, coming around to Stiles’s front. 

Texas grabbed Stiles’s arms and shoved them forward, allowing Aussie to quickly cuff him again. 

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when a psycho bitch stomps on your wrist and breaks it for absolutely no good reason,” Stiles muttered bitterly. 

Aussie made a considering sound in the back of his throat, but didn’t push the issue more. 

“The door’s gonna stay open a bit so we can keep an eye on ya. Try to be quick about it,” Aussie said, placing his hand on Stiles’s shoulder and gently ushering him inside the bathroom. 

True to his word, he didn’t close the door all the way, which, again, was stupid since there were clearly no windows or anything in the bathroom that Stiles could have escaped out of. The bathroom didn’t even have a mirror or a bathtub in it. It just had a standard toilet and sink. 

While Stiles was doing his business, he heard a new voice shout, “You guys back?” 

“Yeah, we got the kid,” Texas shouted back. “Didya stock up the fridge this mornin’? I’m starvin’.” 

Stiles flushed and moved to the sink to wash his hands, making sure he washed off all the dirt that Kate’s boot had smeared onto his left one. While he was cleaning it, he noticed that his wrist did look swollen like Aussie said, but as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any bruised coloration to it. He didn’t know if that was unusual or not. He hoped it was fine. 

Heavy boots echoed from somewhere on the second floor. “Yup, I got a bunch of stuff from the store. You might cook up some of the beef I got and make some burgers. I got a whole pack of Coke’s and some water bottles too. They’re on the top shelf.” 

“Burgers and Coke, that’s all a man needs,” Texas said gleefully. “Thanks, Davis. I’ll cook a few for y’all too.”

Aussie and Davis shouted back their thanks just as Stiles nudged the bathroom door open all the way with his elbow. Aussie crowded Stiles up against the wall and then quickly took off the cuffs so that he could position Stiles’s arms back behind him again. 

Stiles wasn’t sure if these guys realized he was a cop’s kid and knew a few different ways to break out of cuffs. It was better for him if they didn’t. Maybe that way he could bide his time and try and break out of the cuffs when they were sleeping. 

He tried to discreetly glance around for all the exits while Aussie picked him up over his shoulders again. There was obviously the front door, and from what he could see, it looked like there was a door by the kitchen that possibly led to a garage. But for all Stiles knew, it could’ve just been the laundry room. He looked to the other side of the room and saw two big sliding doors right behind the dining room table. It looked like the doors led out to the backyard porch. So all in all, there were two, possibly three, doors for him to escape from. Good to know. 

“Alright, mate, up the stairs we go,” Aussie said suddenly, tightening his hold on Stiles as he started going up the stairs that led to the second floor. 

“Do me a favor,” Stiles grunted, scared he was going to fall. “Next time, pick a house that has a damn elevator.”

Aussie barked out a laugh. “I’ll make sure to mention it at the next meeting.” 

Both of them seemed to sigh in relief as soon as they made it to the top. Stiles wasn’t surprised that there was no furniture on the second floor either. There sure were a lot of bedrooms though. Aussie made a beeline for the room at the very end of the hallway. Stiles assumed it was the master bedroom since the other rooms they passed looked pretty small. 

Aussie kicked at the closed door with his foot. “Oi, let me in. I got me hands full.” 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” came Davis’s muffled reply. 

He got the door open a few seconds later. 

Stiles was immediately greeted by Davis’s brown eyes staring right at him. It was a bit intimidating because Davis was looking at him in a similar way that Kate did. Other than that, the first thing Stiles noticed was that Davis was blonde like Aussie, but he definitely looked a little older. Maybe early thirties if Stiles had to guess. And whereas Aussie was lean and muscular, Davis was like a brick wall of muscle. Hell, they should’ve had Davis carrying Stiles around since his shoulders were broad as a longboard. 

“So this is him?” Davis said, eyes looking Stiles over from head to toe. “The mutt lover?”

A mixture of shock and anger flared in Stiles’s chest. “Better to be a lover than a _murderer_ ," Stiles spat.

Aussie shifted from foot to foot, seeming nervous about the sudden hostility.

“Hey, cunt knuckles,” Aussie said to Davis, “move ya big arse outta the way so I can put him down. My arms are about to fall off.” 

Davis blinked a few times. “Right, yeah, sorry. Come on in.” 

As soon as Davis moved out of the doorway, Stiles felt his heart drop to his feet. Because not only was Victoria Argent gagged and tied up in one corner of the room, there was another familiar face sitting on the other side of the room inside a circle of mountain ash. 

Holy shit. Holy _fuck_. 

It was Peter’s 4-year-old son, Felix Hale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. This chapter was an absolute bitch to write purely because there were so many emotions that needed to be fleshed out in it. I'm so glad I got it finished though. 
> 
> Hopefully, the surprise at the end helped you realize why Peter didn't come flying to Derek and Stiles's aid right away. Also, I hope the depiction of a panic attack was alright. And what do you guys think about Aussie? Do you like him or hate him? 
> 
> Anyways, yeah, expect to have this story update again around next Tuesday or so. Bye bye, lovelies.


	3. Chapter 3

“Aw jeez. Felix? They took you too?” 

Stiles didn’t feel like this was real life. There was no way Derek had just been shot at school. There was no way Stiles had just been kidnapped by supernatural hunters. There was no way they had taken Stiles to an isolated location. There was no way Allison’s mom was tied up to the wall at said isolated location. And there was certainly no way that Peter and Elizabeth’s son had somehow been abducted and held hostage in the same way. 

Nope. That didn’t happen in real life. That was some movie shit. 

Except, apparently, Stiles’s life was a fucking movie because whether he wanted to believe it or not, it _was_ happening. 

Felix was staring at Stiles with wide eyes, seeming to be just as shocked to see Stiles as Stiles was to see him. His cheeks and the skin under his eyes were a splotchy red color from crying. Tear tracks and dried snot had settled over the duct tape on his mouth. 

Stiles felt sick to his stomach knowing how terrified Felix must be. He was only four for Christ’s sake. He’d only ever been around members of his pack, and not only was he separated from them now, he was also tied up in a place he’d never been before with a bunch of hunters who clearly wanted to kill him. 

Stiles couldn’t imagine going through that as a 4-year-old. Hell, he was a legal adult and he was barely handling it.

Stiles jerked in Aussie’s grip, suddenly furious that these sick bastards thought it was okay for them to do this kind of thing to a child. And not just any child, but the one child that Stiles had grown to care a lot about.

“You people are out of your minds!” Stiles shouted at Davis’s backside. “He’s just a kid! How could you do this to a kid? He’s never done anything to anybody!” 

Without warning, Aussie plopped Stiles down on the floor of the right side of the room. Stiles grunted at the not-so-gentle treatment. Great. Now his shoulder and thigh were probably going to be sore as hell. That was exactly what he needed right now, more injuries. 

As soon as the pain in his limbs tapered off into a dull throbbing sensation, he warily eyed the chain and padlock that were attached to the white colored wall. Looking at them made him think about being tied up with no way out, just like the people in horror movies or like real life kidnapping victims. 

The very thought of losing his freedom made him start to sweat. He wouldn’t be able to protect himself. Wouldn’t be able to do anything he wanted. He would be at the hunter’s mercy for no discernible amount of time. It was absolutely terrifying to think about.

Stiles could feel the panic starting to take hold of him again. He had to ignore it. He had to think about something else. Anything else. He couldn’t have a panic attack in front of Felix. He just couldn’t. He was an adult. Well, kind of. Mostly. 

The _point_ was that he couldn’t be leaking his fear all over the place. It would only freak Felix out more and that was the last thing Stiles wanted. The kid was probably scared enough, he didn’t need to feel Stiles’s fear too. What he needed was some reassurance. He needed to be protected. 

Stiles was no werewolf and he certainly was no skilled fighter, but he sure as hell would do anything he could to protect Felix from these hunters. He didn’t even know what he would do if something happened to Felix on his watch. If he ever saw the Hale’s again (and considering the situation he was in right now, that was a big _if_ ) how could he ever face them if something happened to Felix? He fucking couldn’t. He would never be able to look at Peter and Elizabeth again without crying. 

Fuck. Peter. Now Stiles knew why Peter had sounded so frantic on the phone as well as why Peter didn’t floor it to help him and Derek. The hunters had probably come for Felix before Kate had attacked Stiles. Peter must have been out of his mind with worry. 

“This is the first time I’ve heard the mutt be quiet,” Davis said in surprise, gesturing down at Felix and seeming perfectly content to ignore Stiles. 

It was just the thing Stiles needed to help him focus on his anger rather than his fear. 

“Do you really want to be the guys that have an amber alert out for their asses?” Stiles asked, not liking how Davis’s attention was on Felix. “You might want to rethink your whole traumatizing an innocent kid plan because, just so you know, prison doesn’t take too kindly to child abusers.”

His face twisted into a grimace as Aussie removed the handcuffs and replaced them with cold chains around his good wrist and the broken one. A padlock was clicked into place right by his hands, effectively tying them together and keeping him bolted to the wall like the fucking pipe organ from the Beauty and the Beast Christmas movie. Surprisingly, the cuffs around his ankles were also removed. 

Stiles’s initial feeling of excitement at knowing how to break out of the cuffs was completely crushed by the fact that he had no idea how to bust out of a padlock. Even if he did, there weren’t any tools lying around for him to use. The room was empty save for all the people inside of it, giving him nothing to work with. It was a soul crushing realization. Once again, Stiles wished he was Hermione so he could just alohomora himself free. 

“Hey! Are you listening to m—”

“For fuck’s sake, yes! Yes!” Davis yelled, turning to look at Stiles with his reddened face and angry eyes. “We hear your annoyingly loud mouth, we just don’t give a damn. News flash, mutt lover, even if he was a newborn, I’d still want to kill him because he’s a menace to society.”

“‘Menace to society,’” Stiles scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Right, yeah, I’m sure he goes out every night and brains the people of Beacon Hills with his Pokémon toys. Oh, whatever will we do?” 

Davis’s face twisted into something thunderous. He stomped over to Stiles, and before Stiles could react, he found himself slammed against the wall. Davis pressed his muscular forearm across Stiles’s throat, which really didn’t do anything to help Stiles’s anxiety since he’d just been in a very similar situation with Kate earlier. 

“Listen you little sh—”

“Wow,” Stiles said, voice strained from the pressure. “That’s a great intimidation tactic you got there. Too bad I’m used to this position. Just boyfriend things, am I right?”

Davis grabbed the front of Stiles’s shirt and pulled him forward before shoving him back even harder. Stiles’s head cracked against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut and hissed through his teeth. Fuck… fuck! That had really fucking hurt. Why was he such a moron? Why did he have to bait the scary strong man that could easily snap his neck like a toothpick? He’d clearly lost all form of self-preservation. Kate had probably choked it out of him.

Stiles desperately looked over at Aussie to see if he would help like he had before. Aussie was standing off to the side a few feet away from them. He looked between Davis and Stiles warily like he wanted to intervene, but wasn’t sure if he should put his ass on the line for it. Stiles hated him for it. He hated how vulnerable he was. He hated how vulnerable Felix was. He hated these stupid hunters and their stupid lack of morals. He just hated every fucking thing about this stupid situation. 

The growling that started reverberating throughout the room made both Stiles and Davis jump in surprise. Davis stepped aside, giving Stiles the chance to see Felix pressed up against the mountain ash barrier. His gold eyes and claws coupled with his intense expression threw Stiles for a loop. He’d known Felix for a long time and he’d never seen him look so intimidating before. Probably because 4-year-olds weren’t supposed to be intimidating. 

It was also weird as hell because it made him look even more like Peter. Well, save for the dirty blonde hair. The hair was a distinct trait from Elizabeth’s side of the family. 

Davis released Stiles with a harsh shove that made Stiles’s wrists dig into his back. He ignored the pain, too focused on how Davis started walking closer to the mountain ash line. 

Davis sneered at Felix. “What? You don’t like it when I hurt the widdle human?” 

Even as young as he was, Felix was smart enough to back up from Davis’s hulking form. He’d always been a smart kid with good instincts. Stiles could clearly imagine Peter’s beam of pride as well as his smug remark about Felix inheriting his intelligence. 

“For Christ’s sake!” Victoria said suddenly.

Stiles jerked in surprise at the sound of her voice. He completely forgot that she was even there. 

The duct tape that had been slapped over her mouth was now dangling from one side of her cheek. It took off most of her lipstick and some of her foundation along with it. Clearly, she’d been working on peeling it off while the rest of them had been talking. 

“This is ridiculous!” she bit out, aiming her icy glare at Davis. “You want to kill a werewolf and some kid? Fine. But you and I are on the same team. I certainly don’t deserve to die like them.”

Stiles’s mouth dropped open in shock. Did Allison’s mom really care so little about his and Felix’s lives that she would gladly stand by and let the hunters kill them? Really? Stiles could maybe understand her lack of feelings about him as a person. It’s not like they knew each other. She’d maybe only heard about him from Allison at some point. 

But Felix? He was just a kid who wasn’t even old enough to tie his own shoelaces by himself yet. Stiles couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Victoria, a whole ass parent, felt absolutely zero protective instincts towards Felix in this situation, werewolf or not. 

“You know damn well you deserve to be exactly where you are right now,” Davis said heatedly. “Signing a treaty with the Hales. Working with them behind our backs. Sound familiar?” 

“Don’t pretend like Chris and I have committed some kind of mass offense when all we’ve done is ensure that we won’t be attacked unprovoked.” 

“Chris was giving Peter Hale information about our whereabouts,” Aussie said, pointing between him and Davis. “Sounds like a betrayal to me.”

Felix’s eyes flicked over to Stiles at the sounds of Peter’s name, most likely only making sense of his dad’s name out of everything else Victoria and the hunters were talking about. 

“I know nothing about that,” Victoria stated with such a practiced poker face that Stiles genuinely couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. “I’d like to know where you’re getting your information from.”

“I’m sure your good pal, Brody, would love to tell you all about it over cocktails in hell one day,” Davis said with an infuriatingly smug grin. 

“Brody,” Victoria said like it was a fact rather than a question. Her blue eyes were so frigid that they probably could have frozen water if she looked at it hard enough. “So he’s the mole.”

Stiles wanted to snort. The mole. This was sounding more and more like a movie script every second. Only, Stiles wasn’t enjoying it in his current position. As interesting as this information was in terms of hunters having beef with each other, he would very much like to be excluded from this whole narrative. 

“Pretty big oversight on your part,” Davis said, clearly enjoying rubbing salt into Victoria’s wounds. “You and Chris trusted him. And guess who trusted you?” Davis motioned towards Felix with his thumb. “Them.” 

Felix, who was too young to piece together what they were talking about, looked at Stiles with wide, confused eyes. 

Stiles tried his best to paste on a comforting smile. “It’s okay, Fefe,” he whispered quietly, just as he had done for Derek. “They’re not talking about you,” he tacked on quickly so that Felix wouldn’t hear his traitorous heartbeat. 

_They’re just talking about your alpha and your parents. No biggie._

“So what?” Victoria said. “You kill the three of us and then make your great escape? You’d be leaving behind an awful lot of loose ends.” 

Goosebumps spread across Stiles’s arms at that word. Kill. 

“Actually, we’re not. It’s being taken care of as we speak,” Aussie said. 

“How else do you think we got the mutt and the mutt lover?” Davis said with a glance towards Stiles. 

For the life of him, Stiles couldn’t stop the way his heart started to race after hearing that. The image of Derek coated in his own blood flashed in Stiles’s mind. Fuck. Who else had the hunters gotten? Who had been with Felix tonight? Peter? One of Derek’s sisters? How many Hale’s were dying or already dead?

Stiles had to believe that Talia could protect the others. She was the alpha. She was the strongest. She had to save them, right? That was her… she had to… she couldn’t just…

Stiles took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. He did it again. And again.

He had to keep it together. He couldn’t freak out right now. Felix was there. Felix was looking at him. Felix needed him. 

Felix. Felix. Felix. 

Okay. Okay. Right. 

“Chris isn’t in town. He’ll come for you,” Victoria said in a threatening tone. 

Now that Stiles thought about, he did remember Scott mentioning something about Allison and her dad leaving for the weekend to visit a college in New York. Shit, Kate had probably planned this whole operation around their trip. Maybe she had wanted to make sure Allison didn’t get caught in the crossfire. Maybe she just thought it would be easier to make her move without Chris around. Either way, no Chris probably meant there was no one actively trying to track Victoria down.

Peter had mentioned over the phone that Chris had contacted him to let him know that his men had spotted Kate in town. But if that Brody guy was a mole and Chris and his hunter buddies didn't know it, there was a possibility Brody would be giving all of them false information.

This was just getting better and better. 

“Sure. Unless he’s in prison,” Aussie mumbled while looking at his phone. “Wouldn’t ya know, cops usually like to investigate murder-suicides.”

Victoria’s mouth parted in shock. The facade she’d been holding onto finally crumpled, laying bare the panic that she’d been concealing. Seeing her frightened expression didn’t help Stiles’s anxiety at all. It only amplified it. If the hunter was scared of the other hunters then it only made sense that Stiles should be too, even though he didn’t completely understand what the murder-suicide implied. 

Who was the murderer in that scenario and who was the one committing suicide? Why would Chris be the one in prison for it? 

He had so many questions to ask, but he was terrified of what kind of answers he would get. Plus he already got banged up from the smart ass comments he made earlier. And now that he knew it was very likely that the hunters planned to kill him, he didn’t want to do anything that would speed up that process.

The tension in the air was suddenly broken by Texas yelling, “Y’all, the burgers are done! Come n’ eat!”

“Finally! I’m starving,” Aussie said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Ya got the alarms working in here, Davis?” 

“Yup. Installed them earlier.” Davis gestured to the alarms above the windows and the doorway. “We’re good to go.”

“Thank fuck,” Aussie said. He looked at Stiles and winked. “Don’t look so sad. We’ll be back before ya know it.” 

Stiles caught himself from rolling his eyes. He was getting really tired of Aussie talking to him like they were friends when they both knew perfectly well what the endgame here was. 

Aussie left the room in a hurry after that, his boots making loud thunking sounds as he clambered down the hallway. 

Davis followed after him at a much slower pace. He looked between Stiles, Felix, and Victoria once more before he pulled out a small remote and hit a button on it. The alarms made a beeping sound, obviously now activated. 

Then Davis shut the door in place. His footsteps followed Aussie’s. Stiles heard them both clamber down the stairs, and then after that, he could only hear the vague noises of their chatter echoing throughout the house. 

Stiles turned his attention away from the door to look at Felix. The poor kid was standing as close to Stiles as the mountain ash line would allow, which was barely close at all, considering Stiles was chained up to the far right. 

Felix’s mouth and his hands were still duct taped together. Stiles figured the hunters didn’t care that much about them being able to talk if they didn’t properly gag them all. It’s not like anyone would be able to hear them anyways. The farms probably had acres of land between each of them. 

If Stiles had to guess, he’d say they were at least an hour outside of Beacon Hills. That meant they were too far for any of the Hale’s to hear Felix’s howl. So, yeah. Fuck. They really didn’t have a chance of anyone from the outside being able to hear them. 

For Felix’s sake, Stiles tried to shove all his negative emotions to the back burner in his mind. There could only be room for one panicking adult at a time. Clearly, it was Victoria’s turn. She was still staring at the doorway with an expression that made it seem like she wasn’t quite all there. 

Stiles ignored her and turned his full attention to Felix. The poor kid was jerking his arms around behind his back, clearly wanting the duct tape off. Fat tears were welling in his blue eyes and his breathing was picking up rapidly. 

“Here, Fefe, let’s get you out of the tape, okay?” Stiles said softly.

Felix immediately stopped what he was doing and nodded rapidly, turning all his attention to Stiles. 

Stiles walked as close to Felix as the chains would allow him to. His arms were pulled taut behind his back and the chains dug into his wrists. He just barely stopped himself from hissing in pain at the pressure it put on his broken wrist. He took one step back to give his wrists a little more slack. The last thing he wanted was for the chains to worsen the break or to irritate his skin. 

“I’m not going to be able to take the tape off for you.” He tugged lightly on his chains to show Felix that he couldn’t move closer. “But I can tell you what you need to do.”

If Felix didn’t have duct tape over his mouth, Stiles was almost certain the kid would be pouting. Pretty much all the 4-year-olds he’d ever met hated doing things themselves unless it was something fun and easy. Unfortunately for both of them, getting off duct tape was neither of those two things. Well, it would’ve been incredibly easy for an older werewolf. A younger one like Felix had the strength for it, he just needed to use the right amount of force to break it instead of trying to pull his wrists apart. 

“First, you’re gonna want to bend over. Then you’re gonna want to—” 

“It’s easier for kids to understand if you show them how to do it first,” Victoria interrupted.

Stiles blinked in surprise. 

“What?” she snapped. “I’ve raised a child. I know what I’m talking about.” 

“Allison, yeah, I know,” Stiles said slowly. “It’s just that a few minutes ago you were fine with serving us up on a silver platter to the hunters. Now you want to help us out all of a sudden?”

“I don’t want to help you do anything. You both have information I need to know about. The only way I’m going to get to hear it is if the tape comes off his mouth,” she said, finally reverting back to her icy demeanor. 

He honestly wasn’t sure why he was surprised at Victoria’s lack of compassion. He said it before and he would say it again: people who dedicated their lives to killing supernatural creatures were probably not the most rational or sympathetic individuals. 

Still, he had no earthly idea how someone as sweet as Allison could’ve been raised by a bitch like Victoria. Maybe Chris was the nicer of the two. For Allison’s sake, Stiles hoped so. 

“We’ll share what we know as long as you share what you know.”

He needed information to piece everything together. He wanted to know why the hunters had taken the three of them instead of killing them. He needed to know where the absolute fuck they were. He needed to know exactly who the players in the murder-suicide were. That one was probably the most important one to know about based on Victoria’s reaction to it. 

He just needed to feel like he had some kind of control in this situation, and having information about what was going on would make him feel more stable. More mentally prepared. Maybe it would give him some ideas of how he was going to get them the hell out of this situation. Well, that, or help him find some way to trick the hunters into letting them go. Texas and Davis were less likely to let their guard down around them. Aussie on the other hand… 

“What makes you think I know anything?” 

Stiles threw his head back against the bare wall and sighed, annoyed. “Listen, the more I know, the better chance I have of coming up with a way to get us out of here. You do want that, right? Freedom? Living to see another day? Getting to see Allison again?” 

Victoria paused. “You of all people think you’re capable of breaking out of here? Out of these chains?” She raised her arms up behind her back and rattled the chains to make her point. “I’d like to see it.” 

“Just watch me, lady!” Stiles snapped in frustration. He brought his chained hands up to the back of his head and angrily raked his fingers through his hair. He was completely fed up with her unhelpful attitude. 

A ripping sound pierced the air. 

Stiles furrowed his brows and looked around for the noise, only to be surprised when he realized that Felix had just ripped the duct tape around his hands. How he’d done it, Stiles wasn’t sure. It was probably a mixture of werewolf strength, wiggling to loosen the tape, and maybe even some claw action.

“Way to go, buddy! You actually did it!” Stiles cheered, feeling pride in his chest over Felix’s accomplishment. 

There was an expression of eagerness and desperation on Felix’s face as he continued to peel himself out of the tape. His claws were extended while he balled all of the tape up in his hands. He dropped the tape beside him and immediately went for the tape across his mouth next. It peeled off with a sticky sound. 

“Ow!” Felix whined dramatically in the kind of loud and obnoxious way only a kid could. 

“Shh!” Stiles hissed, throwing a quick glance towards the door as if he could somehow see if the hunters had heard it. “Let’s try not to yell. We don’t want the hunters to come back up here yet.” 

“I didn’t mean to, but it hurt!” Felix grumbled as he rubbed his hands over his lips and his cheeks. 

Victoria rolled her eyes. “Get over it. You’ll be fine in a few seconds.”

Felix’s mouth twisted into a frown. “Stiles, she just told me to get over it. My mommy told me that’s not nice.”

Stiles glared at Victoria, because really? It didn’t matter if Felix was a werewolf and would finish healing in a few seconds, he was still allowed to be upset for feeling pain. 

“I know, I know. That wasn’t very nice of her,” Stiles said while looking pointedly at Victoria. 

Victoria let out an irritated sigh, clearly having no intention of apologizing. She slumped backwards to rest against the wall she was chained to. Looking at her vibrant red hair against the equally vibrant white paint made Stiles’s eyes hurt. He turned his attention back to Felix who was now sitting cross legged on the floor closest to Stiles. 

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked him, feeling slightly ridiculous for asking such a question when the answer was clearly anything but yes. 

Felix wrapped his arms around his knees. His chin and hands were trembling in a way that made Stiles feel unsettled. He mirrored Felix’s position on the floor, finally feeling the tension release from his shoulders after trying to stand close to Felix for so long. 

“I don’t like it here!” Felix managed to squeak out before he started crying again. He bit down on his arm while his whole chest heaved. “I want my mommy. I really want my mommy.”

Stiles’s heart ached. He had never felt more helpless in his whole damn life. Here he was chained to a wall in a room with a terrified, crying child, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to make it better. He couldn’t hold Felix to comfort him. He couldn’t tell him it was okay and that someone would come save them. He just… he couldn’t fucking do anything! 

What he really wanted to do was have a good cry himself. Just cry until he couldn’t anymore. Because God his nerves were shot to hell. He was so physically and emotionally drained that he didn’t want to pretend to be the adult in this situation anymore. He didn’t want to pretend like he had his shit together when he absolutely didn’t! 

He wanted his dad. He wanted Derek. He wanted…

Stiles shook his head and ignored the tears burning at the corners of his eyes. He sucked in a shaky breath. And another one. And another one.

It didn’t really help that the smell of the hamburgers had finally wafted its way to their room. Stiles’s stomach grumbled and his mouth watered. A hamburger and curly fries sounded so good to him right then. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get to eat anything else again. Maybe the coke and the salty popcorn he had at the game was the last thing he’d ever get to taste. That was just another thing he’d have to add to his growing list of depressing realizations. 

God, what was wrong with him? He had to get it together. Had to stay focused. There were still things about this situation he didn’t know, and maybe once he knew a little more, he could find something to work with. What he needed was information and a plan. He would need help with the whole information thing though. 

He looked back over at Victoria, only to find her staring right back at him.

She had the same realization on her face.

Stiles decided to bite the bullet. 

“I was at school tonight with Derek,” Stiles said suddenly, instantly capturing Victoria and Felix’s attention. “Kate was there. She lured us outside and attacked us.” His eyes flickered over towards Felix. “They… shot Derek with a special bullet. Caused paralysis. It was some kind of venom. Oh man, what was it called…”

“Kanima venom,” Victoria said knowingly. 

“Yeah! That!”

“They shot Laura n’ Cora too!” Felix said suddenly as his sobs grew louder. 

Shit. Stiles really should have been a bit more subtle with his words.

“Shh… shh! It’s okay to cry, I just need you to do it quietly, okay?” Stiles said urgently, looking at the door with wide eyes. 

“I-I can’t!” Felix sniffled, choking on his next sob. 

Stiles threw a desperate look at Victoria, practically begging her to help him.

She looked between him and Felix with a thoughtful look on her face. For some reason, the expression made her eyes seem a little warmer. A little softer. She settled more comfortably against the wall. 

“Felix, what happened to your shoelaces?” she said in the most chipper tone Stiles had heard come out of her mouth thus far. 

Felix’s sobs stuttered as he looked down at his black and white Velcro shoes in confusion. 

“What shoelaces? I don’t have shoelaces,” he said, this time in a noticeably quieter voice. 

“You don’t? That’s odd. I could have sworn you had shoelaces!” Victoria scrunched her eyebrows together and made a humming sound like she was thinking hard about something. “What happened to them? Did a dragon eat them?”

Felix glanced at Stiles with an amused twinkle in his eye. “Um… um… did you know dragons don’t existed?”

“Exist,” Victoria corrected.

“Exist,” Felix repeated. “My daddy said so! He said they were too big to hide! If they were alive, we would have found them by now because they’re huge!” 

“That’s absolutely right, we would have found them by now. Your dad sounds like he knows a lot. Did you eat dinner with him and mom tonight?”

It took Stiles a second to realize that this was Victoria’s subtle way of getting information about Felix’s night without trying to upset him. Stiles was impressed by her quick thinking and also weirdly appreciative of her for being delicate with her words.

“No, tonight is parent’s night out!” Felix said. Stiles assumed that must have been Peter and Elizabeth’s code word for: we need some fucking alone time. “Laura came home from college and took me and Cora to eat pizza at an arcade! Guess what?”

“What?” Stiles and Victoria said simultaneously, making them both lock eyes briefly. 

Felix jammed his hand into his pocket and wrangled out a small, green looking toy.

“I won a dinosaur from a machine!”

“Wow,” Victoria said with forced enthusiasm. “It looks like he’s made a home in your pocket. Felix, did you know that I have two houses?” 

Even though the question was aimed at Felix, Victoria was looking right at Stiles with such an intense look that he knew she was trying to tell him something. He leaned forward in anticipation. 

“Whoa, two houses? That’s a lot. I only have one,” Felix said, sounding less interested in the conversation now that he was pretending to make his dinosaur crawl up and down his arm. 

“Yes, one of my houses is new and looks _exactly_ like this one,” she said while using her heel to pat the floor. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say they were the _same_ house.” 

The meaning behind her words hit Stiles like a truck. Bug-eyed, Stiles made sure Felix wasn’t looking in his direction before he gestured around the room with his head.

Without making a single peep, he looked at Victoria and mouthed, “This is your house?”

She nodded. “Chris and I wanted a house that was private so we could… store things there. Take care of business. Practice our hobbies. That sort of thing.”

Stiles wanted to snort. Hobbies. Right. Clearly, she was talking about hunting. He could only assume she meant they planned to use this house as a place to store weapons or to practice using them. They probably had enough land out here to practice shooting guns or crossbows or whatever the hell else without raising suspicions. It also seemed isolated enough for them to get away with things they probably would have a harder time getting away with in the suburbs of Beacon Hills. 

Now it made sense why this house had zero furniture in it and looked like it had been remodeled recently. Chris and Victoria clearly hadn’t had time to move anything in yet. 

But if the Argent's owned this house then Kate must have found out about it somehow. 

“I’m the alpha dinosaur! I’m gonna destroy your whole city!” Felix said in a monster-like voice as he made his dinosaur hop across the floor. 

Stiles was relieved that the dinosaur was distracting him even though he was pretty sure it wouldn’t distract him for much longer. With Felix paying them no mind, now was the best chance to try and get information about the one thing he wanted to know the most. 

He furrowed his brow and mouthed, “Murder-suicide?” Okay, maybe that was a little blunt, but it's not like they were blessed with a lot of time here.

When Victoria looked at him in confusion, clearly not having understood, he shuffled to the side so she could see his hands. He mimed shooting a gun at her and then turning the gun on himself. It wasn’t the most helpful display since his hand movements were limited, so he repeated the word one more time to make sure she got it. 

He could tell it clicked as soon as her face morphed into the same grim expression she had when Aussie mentioned it the first time around. She shifted from left to right, looking uncomfortable. 

Stiles gestured towards Felix with his chin and mouthed, “Hurry up!”

If the scowl he received wasn’t a silent “fuck you,” Stiles didn’t know what was. 

Victoria huffed in displeasure and then took a second to shift herself around to put her hands in Stiles’s view. Stiles wanted to laugh because he never would have guessed in a million years that he would be playing _charades_ with Victoria Argent while being held hostage by a bunch of hunters, and yet, here he was. Living out a true nightmare. 

She started off by nodding towards the door, which Stiles assumed was code for hunters. Then she mimed shooting a gun at Stiles. Right. So. Clearly, that meant the hunters were going to kill him. Not that he didn’t expect that or anything. He just didn’t like to have it confirmed. 

Victoria turned her hands towards Felix and shot towards him nine times. Stiles cocked his head, confused. Why would they shoot Felix nine times? Shouldn’t one wolfsbane bullet be enough? Was it some kind of weird hunter ritual or something? 

Stiles wished more than anything that they could speak freely instead of miming all this stuff to keep Felix from freaking out. Unfortunately, it was their only option if they didn’t want a terrified, crying 4-year-old on their hands. The whole situation was already stressful enough, and putting Felix’s emotional well being further at risk was something Stiles wholeheartedly wanted to avoid if possible.

If by some miracle they got out of this situation alive, the poor kid would probably already have some kind of trauma to deal with. Stiles didn’t want to make it worse by talking about the hunter’s intentions to kill them. That was just asking to add another layer to the trauma cake. 

Victoria mouthed, “Nine Hales.” 

Stiles’s lips parted in shock. 

Talia, Henry, Peter, Elizabeth, Laura, Derek, Cora, Felix, and Alex. 

Nine Hales. Nine shots. Nine deaths.

A chill traveled up Stiles’s spine, making him hunch his shoulders towards his ears. He didn’t like the sound of that. No siree, he didn’t like that _at all_. 

“Murder,” Victoria mouthed while gesturing between Stiles and Felix. Stiles assumed that also included the other Hales as well. 

She then gestured back at the door and mimed shooting the gun at herself. “Suicide.” She quietly knocked her heel against the floor again. “ _My_ house.” While gesturing at herself she mouthed, “Me. Framed.” Then she mimed shooting Stiles. 

Stiles felt like someone had just snapped a rubber band against his brain. Like a puzzle, all the pieces suddenly clicked together and painted a horrifying picture in his head. 

The hunters were going to get away with killing them by making it look like Victoria murdered them all at her house before killing herself. Stiles could see someone spinning the story to make it sound like Victoria had invited Stiles and the Hales to come see her new house, only to end up slaughtering them all. 

Aussie’s comment about Chris being in prison made so much more sense now. Because the police would probably raid the Argent’s other house and find… well. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what they’d find. Guns? Hunter shit? Something incriminating? Hell, maybe Kate planted something there since Chris and Allison weren’t home. Either way, the fallout of the situation didn’t sound like good news for Chris for multiple reasons.

The one thing Stiles didn’t understand was how the hunters were planning on getting the other Hales to this house. Okay, well, Stiles assumed bringing the Hales here was what Victoria had been implying. He wasn’t sure how the hunters would be able to frame Victoria for the Hale’s deaths if they were murdered in different locations around Beacon Hills. There wouldn’t be as much evidence for it. It only made sense that they would all be brought to this house… right?

He slumped against the wall with a sigh. There was so much that didn’t make any sense. Back at the school, Kate had told Aussie to drag Derek behind the dumpster. They clearly left him there to die. But if what Victoria was saying was true then why didn’t the hunters bring Derek, Laura, and Cora with them when they had the chance? Why did they split them up from Stiles and Felix? 

Stiles would very much like to know why he’d even been targeted in the first place. Maybe the reason was as simple as him dating a werewolf. Maybe he was never even supposed to be a target and he’d just managed to piss Kate off enough at the game to earn his victim ticket. 

Fuck, he really needed some clarification. 

“Stiles,” Felix said, making Stiles jerk at the sudden sound of his voice. 

Stiles pasted on a fake, reassuring smile. “Yeah, kiddo?” 

“Those people are talking about leaving.” 

Stiles wanted to smack himself in the head. He completely forgot Felix had wolfy ears and could hear everything the hunters were talking about downstairs. Here he and Victoria were playing charades for Felix’s sake, and meanwhile, Felix had probably just been sitting there listening to the hunters talk about murdering his family for the last ten minutes. Well, maybe not. Stiles assumed there probably would’ve been more tears if that had been the case. 

“How many of them?” Victoria asked, losing the bright tone she’d been using with Felix earlier. 

Felix paused and stared at the floor for a few seconds. “The cowboy guy and the mean guy are talking about riding together.”

He definitely meant Texas and Davis. 

“What about the other guy who was in here earlier?” Stiles asked.

He suddenly remembered back at the school that Kate had told Aussie she would send him a text before they did anything else. If they were leaving, maybe that meant they were planning to go get the other Hales. 

“The guy who talks funny?” Felix asked.

Stiles wanted to say that it wasn’t very nice to call someone’s accent funny, but now wasn’t the time for a lecture on manners. 

“Yeah, did he say he was leaving too?”

“Uh… I think so?” Felix said, scrunching up his face. “He wants to drive the horse tailor after he checks on us.”

“Horse trailer,” Victoria corrected. 

“What’s a trailer?” Felix asked. 

“It’s like a car for horses to ride in,” Stiles said. He tried not to think about how it was probably big enough to fit a couple werewolves inside of it. 

Instead, he thought about how this could be a chance for them to make an escape. If all the hunters were leaving like Felix said then there would be no one at the house to watch them. Stiles wasn’t sure if the reason for all three hunters leaving was because the hunters were confident there was no chance of Stiles, Felix, and Victoria escaping, or if it was because Kate needed all hands on deck to take down the Hales.

“This could be our chance to get out of here,” Victoria said, voicing Stiles’s thoughts. She shuffled towards Stiles with a desperate look on her face. “If you have anything in your pockets that could open these locks then give it to me.”

“Wait, you know how to open padlocks?”

She nodded impatiently. “It’s part of the training in my line of work. Now, do you have anything on you or not?” 

“I have a dinosaur!” Felix chimed in while proudly displaying his toy in the air. 

Victoria ignored him and stared intently at Stiles instead. 

“I don’t have anything,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “What kind of thing are you talking about?” 

“A paper clip or a pin. Something like aluminum that I can bend.” 

“Wait, aluminum? Like a Coke can?” Stiles asked. 

“Yes, exactly like that.”

His heart soared. “They have Cokes downstairs!” 

“Yeah!” Felix cheered, picking up on Stiles’s excitement. “I heard someone ask for a Coke when they were eating!” 

Victoria looked less than thrilled. 

“How nice,” she said, tone dripping with sarcasm. “And how do you expect to get one when we’re all stuck up here?”

Stiles thought about what Felix mentioned earlier about Aussie planning to check on them before he left. He thought about how Aussie had talked to him in a soothing voice back at the school. How Aussie had helped during Stiles’s panic attack instead of letting him suffer. How Aussie had commented on Stiles’s hurt wrist with a touch of concern. How Aussie had laughed good-naturedly at Stiles’s complaint while going up the stairs. How Aussie never referred to any of the Hales as mutts. 

There was clearly a sympathetic quality in Aussie that the other two hunters lacked. Or maybe it was that Aussie didn’t have such a strong hatred for werewolves as the other hunters did. Either way, it was that unexpected kindness of his that Stiles fully intended to exploit. 

“Remember when I said the more I knew, the better chance I had of coming up with a plan?” Stiles asked, looking between Victoria and Felix’s expectant faces. “Well, I think I just thought of one.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought you'd never get an update? Muaha, think again. Apologies for the long wait. But I wrote 20 pages so think of it as a peace offering.
> 
> This story has definitely taken a bigger turn that what I originally intended. Lemme know what you guys think.
> 
> Also AO3 keeps fucking up the spacing between italicized words and stuff, so if you catch any weird spaces just know that it's not my doing and I'll try to go back and fix it all.


End file.
